Me, we.

When a captivated audience asked him to improvise a poem during his speech to the Harvard University graduating class in 1975, Muhammad Ali recited one composed of only two words.

“Me, We”.

It’s a concise yet powerful statement that captures the essence of unity and collective action.

Notice that he didn’t qualify the “me”; he said nothing about who can constitute the “we” either. When the invitation is honest and there is a genuine willingness to change things together, accompanied by the urgency born from the frustration that things are not moving fast enough, this is what we do.

We don’t set out to choose who could be our accomplices; we focus on what makes us the same and not on our differences.

You see, the travel companions on this journey can actually be unlikely. Just because everyone living in the same world we are living in should be a travel companion to accept the challenges we’re facing.

We usually associate individuals or radical groups who are already deeply committed to nowadays problems, fighters outside the system, to advocate for world improvement. But we could also ally with other entities, as new to all this as we are, something that paradoxically could offer us more opportunities to change the world for real.

For example, there are institutions that need to change their course, religious organizations, companies.

Even commercial brands.

For example, what would you say if we told you that the most socially conscious commercial brands in the world are willing to forget the hierarchies in the brand-consumer relationship to join forces with you and achieve real change? Are you going to refuse the offer?

On the same level, human to human, companies need to make change really happen, and they have the power to do it. We, on the other hand, need a gateway through which we can actively and effectively participate in reality.

They, we; all of us need to make change happen, really. So it should be “Me, We,” with whoever, without hierarchies, as equals.

“We, on the other hand, need a gateway through which we can actively and effectively participate in reality”.

In the case of commercial brands, it would be so much so that this time it would no longer be about accepting the terms and conditions they may impose.

But this time both parties, together, would have to establish ours.