Figure Out Ways To Do Disproportionately More Good. Part 3 of 3
If you examine many of your favorite stories, fiction or non-fiction, one of the consistent themes is this: The protagonist figures out a way, through the use of her clever skills, cooperation, and coordination, to do disproportionately more good for her community.
Look at: Greek and Roman myths. The stories of kings and rulers. Religious figures. War heroes. In many of these cases, the person becomes a hero by enabling more uncommonly good things to occur.
I enjoy art. But I’m not a writer or an artist because I love art or writing in a vacuum. I write about art, ethics, philosophy, and creativity because I believe the dissemination of quality ideas can create a disproportionately good effect on others’ lives.
One of the reasons so many other activities don’t interest me, as much as sharing bright ideas and artworks, is I’ve found few other activities, when matched with my aptitudes, that create more good effects in and for others.
So, to those who have been told they are just “dust in the wind,” or they are just an unimportant cog in the world’s machine, I say: No. You have rare combinations of skills, that if you investigate them thoroughly and regularly exercise them, you can achieve the admirable ends of doing a disproportionately large amount of good for your community and world.
If we are just a spec of dust in the winds of time, then I aim to be the most annoyingly helpful spec of dust I can be. And I’m glad when others do the same.
Most of the people who do great things don’t just keep to themselves in their homes. Most of them reach out in highly visible ways to enable good things for others. Whether it’s Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks, or Martin Luther King Jr. Whether it’s a rock band or a movie director. Whether it’s a technology leader or a politician – people with great ideas tend to place their actions and ideas in public view for scrutiny and consideration. Light bulbs, to be useful, are usually in places of high visibility.
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If you’d like to read all three parts of this post series, the first post is here.
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The artwork atop this post is by Patricio Suarez. © All rights reserved by Patricio Suarez.
This blog began in 2006. If you enjoy these posts, and would like to read all of them in order, you can begin here. When you’re done reading one, click on the link to the next post in the lower right corner.
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