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[As a little background, James runs a fair trade company called Acholi Beads, which partners with women in Uganda.]

By the time you read this I’ll be flying to the small East African country of Uganda.  Again.  For the seventh time.

I remember well the excitement and anxiety of my first trip – the knotting of my stomach as I nervously fingered my passport in the early morning airport security line; the exhausted wonder as the plane’s navigation traced our path over Egypt and Sudan; the rush of thick, warm air streaked with jet fuel as I stepped onto the tarmac only blocks from Lake Victoria.

Now my impending flight feels less like an adventure and more like a very long commute, one for which I must first stand in line and remove my shoes.

And this is one of the secrets to effectiveness in the “helping people around the world” industry, and I suppose in most any other: Keep flying even when the adventure wears off.

I can tell you a quick, glamorous story about the elation of watching lives transform, about hearts renewed with hope and purpose after decades of crushing poverty.  And in the long view these stories are true.  But they play out slowly over the course of years.  The shorter, more palpable stories are often frustrating or even boring.

And I could go on endlessly about how wonderful the Ugandan women we work with are, and it’s true, they are wonderful.  But not more wonderful than the woman in front of you at the grocery store.  They are not saints or story characters, they are just people trying to make a living, bringing very human sets of strengths and weaknesses with them.

The long-term vision and story of our business is beautiful and inspiring and sustaining.  Without the promise of and incremental steps towards changed lives I would no doubt be working on something else.  But the adventure and glamour wears thin very quickly.

As you decide where to focus your attention to make the world a little better, enjoy that initial rush of adventure, but don’t count on it to sustain you.  Be prepared to persevere.  Know your vision well and bring it into even the most mundane and frustrating days.  It won’t make it easy, but might make it worthwhile.

And if you happen to be on the same plane as me, please remind me of this around hour 25.