When Does It Become Real?
Have you noticed how we go through life completely blind and oblivious to things that happen UNTIL they happen to US?
Here are a few common examples.
- We don’t realize how expensive a new car is until we need to buy one ourselves.
- We have no idea what it means to have dementia, cancer, ALS, or some other crazy disease until we get up close and personal with it through ourselves, our friends or our family members.
- We have no idea how arduous a course of study is until we begin the journey toward that higher education.
- We don’t understand shunning, hunger, homelessness, and even domestic abuse until we are exposed to it in our own lives.
- We will never know what it means to assume the role of teacher, boss, parent, caregiver, or executor until we have done so ourselves.
This is all to say that that is the number one reason why most people in North America on Planet Earth have no idea how to deal with, ameliorate, or solve the many social and environmental problems that plague us these days.
Most of us have not dealt with them, are past dealing with them, or have no reason to think about dwelling on them.
Imagine you have one of the world’s best creative minds. Choose one social cause. It could be your favourite or least favourite.
What ideas could you put into action so that others would immediately understand, galvanize, and act to improve the lives ofyour friends and family today and tomorrow? Remember, even the most minor action can make a significant difference.
It’s a tough assignment.
How do you get people to believe your ideas and messages that the social issues we see all around us — homelessness, the opioid crisis, mental health, domestic violence, the acute lack of doctors in this country, the endangered monarch butterflies, the adverse effects of fossil fuel emissions — are real and fixable? If only we made a few fundamentally different lifestyle choices.
The thing is, you are not alone in this journey. If you want to change the world in some small fashion and are met with indifference at every stage of the way, remember that you need a community and a tribe to lean on. And that is precisely what I am building right now. If that sounds interesting, get on the waitlist here. We begin early September.
Because even the most minor actions can have a significant impact, and joining with others and taking collective action increases your odds of success in any area of your life.
If you are not interested, no problem. Please remember that others are. Every human being is entitled to a tiny bit of recognition regardless of what they did or did not do or how much money they had or did not have. When you see or meet people doing what you now know are impossible odds, give them a smile, a hug, an atta boy/girl, a smack on the back, your ear, and your love. Your recognition can mean the world to someone.
You never know what someone is going through. And every little bit of humanity you can muster will move mountains. That’s what I call better stewardship; lasting impact.