WHY DO IT?
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW,
Man and Superman
WHY HELP YOUR community deal with racism or failing schools? Why press for cleaner air or water, join a neighborhood association, or attend boring hearings on traffic, land use, or homelessness? Why spend hours searching the Web for data on trade or terrorism? Why send letters and e-mails to your congressperson or your mayor? Why stand up to speak your mind when even your friends wish you'd sit down and shut up?
It's hard and often thankless. It takes time you don't have. It's often a hassle.
So why do it? It's a whole lot easier to stay on the sidelines, wanting and expecting “someone” (the government, perhaps?) to solve the problems—meanwhile complaining that things aren't the way you want them to be.
One motivation for getting involved might be sheer frustration and anger over the injustice or incompetence you see. Something isn't working, or someone's being hurt, or some government or company authority keeps making the same mistake over and over again and nobody seems able or willing to get it right. You think, how can they be so stupid/greedy/gutless? Suddenly you've had enough, and you pick up the phone…
We all understand that motivation. However, I've been working with activists for over 20 years, and I know that frustration and anger can be great catalysts, but you can't succeed for long if they are your only fuel. Sooner or later they'll cause you to start making mistakes and missing opportunities. Eventually they'll undermine your effectiveness, and you'll burn out. There's a stronger, more sustainable motivation for being an active citizen.
When we ask Giraffes—the people honored by the Giraffe Heroes Project—why they stick their necks out the way they do, most will say that they were sparked into action by a crisis or problem. But it's also clear that what keeps most Giraffes going over the long haul—and what helps make them as effective as they are—transcends whatever initial frustration and anger they felt. What sustains them is a strong sense that what they're doing to solve that crisis or problem is meaningful to them at a profound and personal level; that is, that it's in sync with their deepest priorities and values. When asked about their motivations, many Giraffes just look at us and tell us in so many words that it's a damned-fool question. “The problem was right in front of me,” they'll say. “What was I supposed to do?” It's almost as if they couldn't not do it.
And it isn't just Giraffes who are motivated by a sense of meaning. Philosophers and spiritual leaders have been telling us for millennia that there's no deeper human need and no more powerful yearning than to live a life we know is meaningful. We all want to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and know that who we are and what we're doing matters, that we're not just marking time.
That's certainly true for me. I've lived a while, and my résumé is pretty full. What I've found is that I want my actions and commitments to be part of a purpose that satisfies me deep inside and makes me feel totally alive. When I know that what I'm doing is personally meaningful—even if it's very hard—I feel an energy, a sense of excitement, a deep satisfaction of being in the right place at the right time. I'm more inspiring to others, and they are more likely to follow my lead. And I'm much more likely to get the results I want.
image At home, at work, or in the community, do you feel the difference when you know that what you're doing is meaningful?
We all know people who involve themselves in activities and relationships that don't have meaning for them, or who avoid the search for meaning altogether by pretending that nothing is meaningful; they ignore their feelings of emptiness or bury them. It's hard for such people to be creative and to put much focus or energy into what they're doing. They rarely excel; often it's hard for them even to get the job done. People like these are anything but inspiring. It's as if they were slogging through wet concrete.
Finding what's meaningful to you adds focus, energy, passion, and commitment to your life, and it provides a strong, stable motivation for sticking your neck out as an active citizen.
image The most powerful and positive motivation for getting involved as an active citizen—for creating change that serves the common good—comes from the meaning that the work has for you.
Finding and doing what makes our lives meaningful also just makes sense. We can expect to be on earth for 80 or so years. Given that finite time, how can we invest our talents, intelligence, and awareness in things we don't find meaningful enough to justify the investment? To me, that's like owning a fancy Swiss watch with no hands. Your life is important, and there's simply got to be more to it than just showing up.
I've been speaking to groups for 20 years, and there's no topic that gets people to lean forward in their seats like this one. The room becomes quiet. No coughs, no shuffling feet. People recognize the feeling and know from their own lives that there is no more important question. Even if buried, unspoken, or denied, the search for meaning drives our lives.
WHAT'S THE PATH TO A MEANINGFUL LIFE?
If meaning is that important, where does it come from and how do you get there?
At the Giraffe Heroes Project, we've written a book for high school kids, and the first thing we talk about is meaning. We know they're living in a culture that would like all of us to believe that our true worth is in what we buy. So we start by asking, “When's the last time something you bought made your life meaningful, or even made you feel good for very long?”
That's an important question for all of us, considering that it's adults who create the culture that tries to hook kids on stuff to buy, and we're just as hooked as they are. Maybe for us it's a fancy new car instead of a knock-'em-dead shirt—but when's the last time something you bought put meaning in your life for very long?
Well, if it's not stuff you buy that makes life meaningful, we ask the kids, then what about power and status? At 16, it may be what clique they belong to, but kids can also see older friends and family members who always seem to be headed up some ladder, looking for meaning at the next rung, or the one above that, and not finding it.
Take a look at the people you know who have power or status, we suggest. How many of them are leading meaningful lives? And for those who are, is it the power and status that fulfills them—or something else?
So what is a path that gets us there? This story is old, but it makes the point well:
The scene is 13th-century Paris, where construction is in progress on the cathedral of Notre Dame. An onlooker—call him the world's first management consultant—watches three people at work: two stonecutters and an old woman who sweeps up the broken pieces of stone.
The consultant asks the first stonecutter what he's doing. The man says, “I'm cutting stones, and that puts meat and potatoes on the table for my family.”
The consultant asks the same question of the second stonecutter, who answers, “I'm making a gargoyle for the top of the west buttress.”
Then the consultant asks the old woman what she's doing. She stops moving her broom and turns to look at the place in the sky where the great spires will eventually rise, decades after she is dead. Then she turns back and says, “I, sir, am helping build a great cathedral where people can be with God.”
That old woman had it right. She had found meaning for her life—not in possessions or positions, but in seeing her menial job as a commitment to a task bigger than herself and her own needs.
We get the same lesson from Giraffes. People like Ernesto Villareal, who took on school officials to combat racism in his community (see sidebar, page 8), or Andy and Vashti Hurst, who dedicated their lives to providing medical help and fighting for justice in the poorest place in America (see sidebar, page 10).
image People who lead meaningful lives—like that old woman, like Giraffes—don't find that meaning in possessions or positions; they find it in carrying out personal commitments to ideals bigger than themselves and their own needs. It's this commitment that generates the personal enthusiasm, passion, and power of a meaningful life.
That's true for Giraffes. I think it's true for anyone.
But there are many ideals that transcend individual needs. Some of them are negative: The Nazis found meaning in their commitment to ruling Europe. Suicide bombers give their lives for a cause. There may be enthusiasm, passion, and power in commitments like these, but their success depends on the defeat of others, who are certain to fight back. Eventually it's a downward spiral.
image There is a way to find meaning that is positive and lasting. And that's to commit to ideals of service, of working for the common good. The old woman was building a place where people could be with God. Giraffes are, one and all, acting for the good of their communities and beyond.
It took me a long time to get this lesson.
When I was a teenager and young man, the only thing that held meaning for me was adventuring. I shipped out on freighters while still in high school. I was part of a team that made the first ascent of the north wall of Mt. McKinley in Alaska, a climb so dangerous it's never been repeated. I hitchhiked around the world. As a correspondent for The Boston Globe in the mid-'60s, I waded into every shooting war I could find, from Algeria to Laos. The only thing that mattered was the next adrenaline rush.
Then I joined the U.S. Foreign Service. I was a diplomat for 15 years and moved up the ladder fast. I worked not in embassies but in jungles and deserts all over the Third World. I was in the revolution in Libya in 1969, then in Vietnam for a year and a half. I'd asked for Vietnam, not because I thought the war was right or just, but because being in a war was an adventure I'd not yet had. And doing a good job in a dangerous place meant rapid promotions.
Home from the war, I became one of the fastest-rising stars in the Foreign Service. Most of my work dealt with wars and revolutions and arms sales. I saw oppression, hunger, and war all over the world; what held meaning for me, however, was not an urge to relieve the suffering, but the attraction of danger in those far-off spots and my own surging career. The most important day of the year for me was the day when the promotion list came out. When my name was on it, I went out to celebrate.
By the time I was 35, however, the motivations for what I was doing with my life began to sit in the pit of my stomach like a bad meal. Nothing seemed meaningful to me anymore—not in any sense that felt right or fulfilling.
image
In the late 1970s, my career took me to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Part of my job there was overseeing the arms embargo on South Africa. It had been imposed because much of the military equipment sold to the South African government in those years was used to enforce apartheid.
But the embargo leaked like a sieve; there were huge amounts of money involved in the arms trade, and the arms dealers had their friends in parliaments in Europe and in our own Congress. I ignored my instructions to overlook the leaks in the embargo and instead worked secretly for months to tighten it. I did that by helping Third World countries increase their pressure against my own government.
It worked. A tougher embargo was enforced, which helped end apartheid. At any time in this process I could have been fired for insubordination or worse—and almost was.
I took those risks because of a day in South Africa that started with meetings with black activists in the squalor and oppression of the black township of Soweto, and ended with a diplomatic cocktail party in Johannesburg's fanciest white suburb, in a mansion surrounded by wrought-iron fences and guard dogs.
Apartheid stank. From that afternoon on, helping end apartheid meant something to me at some far deeper place in my soul than self-centered adventures and promotions. Like Giraffes, I couldn't not do what I did.
The arms embargo only whetted my appetite. I quickly discovered that I could take all the skills I'd been using to play political power games and focus them instead on peace and justice issues in the Third World.
This discovery made all the difference—to the people I was helping, and to me. At the UN I'd finally found what it was that could make my life meaningful. It wasn't chasing adventure or status or power; it was working to end injustice and suffering. Being part of the efforts to end apartheid, to bring freedom to colonies in Africa and Asia, and to press for human rights pulled me to a new focus for my life. Ironically, the thrill of making a difference this way matched the thrill of any adventures I'd ever had, and it was satisfying in a way no promotion had ever been.
This story may be exotic, but the point is not. I think the path to a meaningful life is out there for each of us, but we have to find it. I tell people, especially young people, what I wish I'd been told when I was just starting out: that every one of us has and will have unique opportunities to make a difference, if only in small and quiet ways. A successful life is about spotting those opportunities and acting on them. The only mistake you can make is to ignore the quest, to settle for an ordinary life, to just look out for Number One, to grow up and live and die without ever having made a difference.
image Take the time and the risk to ask yourself some tough questions and to reflect on the answers:
Is what I'm doing with my life, including any current volunteer work, meaningful enough to me, or am I just going through the motions?
What ideals am I committed to—or might I commit to—to provide that meaning?
What more can I do to put those ideals into action?
Ask yourself these questions regularly. If you're satisfied that an activity has meaning for you, keep reminding yourself that it does. Never take it for granted. Never refer to your work as a citizen activist as a “duty.” Call it what it is—something that makes you fully alive.
And if introspection tells you that you are stuck in something without enough meaning for you, then commit yourself to changing that.
GOING FOR IT
Citizenship is not a spectator sport. It means more than just wishing something good might happen or cheering someone else on. It's more than turning out to vote once in a while. It means investing your time, energy, and resources to make a difference. If we fail to do this—if we consistently wait for others to solve the problems we see—then we muffle our voices, abdicate our responsibilities, and have little right to complain if things turn out badly.
There is an issue out there with your name on it, something you care about, someplace where you can serve and make a difference. Whatever it is, large or small, pay attention to it.
And if you've been energized by a single project, don't stop there. Use what you learned the first time around to help others tackle the same problem—or to take on other causes that might benefit from your experience and contacts. When the poisoning of Love Canal put her own kids in danger, Giraffe Lois Gibbs acted to stop that threat (see sidebar, page 4). But after she won at Love Canal, she started a national organization to help all communities threatened by toxic wastes.
Not long ago I went back for a reunion of the prep school in Tacoma, Washington, from which I had graduated. Nearly all my classmates were leading comfortable lives in business or the professions. They talked about portfolios and college tuitions. I was bored to death—except by one man. His name was Tom Noble. A poor student and slow of speech in high school, he'd been the butt of jokes. But for the past 30 years he'd been directing a social-services agency in the worst area of Tacoma and had just started a controversial needle-exchange program.
Tom Noble was fascinating. He spoke with the charisma and energy and peace of mind of a person who had truly found his calling and answered it with everything he had.
The poet Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
It's the most important question you'll ever ask yourself.
Use your one wild and precious life to serve a cause you believe in. Get involved. The rest of this book will help you do that with courage and skill.
A GIRAFFE STORY
Ernesto Villareal
In the small Idaho town of Marsing, football was everything. On Friday nights, hundreds of people from the town and the farms around it would come to watch the Marsing Huskies play. Ernesto “Neto” Villareal was a star player on the high school team, good enough to be considered for a college athletic scholarship.
The problem was the fans. When the players did something good, everyone cheered. But when they made a mistake, something else happened. If the player was Latino, like Vil-lareal, some fans shouted insults like “Stupid Mexican!” It happened a lot, and people seemed not to notice. But the Latino players noticed. Villareal led them in refusing to play anymore unless the insults stopped. Their coach told them that would only make things worse—the team couldn't win the state championship if they stopped playing. Villareal also knew that he could lose his chance at a football scholarship. But stopping the insults meant more than a scholarship. Villareal talked to the student body president, who then talked to the principal. When the principal refused to do anything, the other Latino players were ready to give up and resume playing. Not Villareal. He went over the principal's head to the school board, even though he'd seen one of the school board members shouting insults at Latino players. It was difficult, but Villareal told the board why he was refusing to play. “Now,” he said to his teammates afterward, “they can't say nobody told them.”
The student body president, inspired by Villareal's courage, wrote a letter asking football fans to stop the insults and asking officials to throw people out of the stadium if they didn't stop. Led by Villareal, the Latino players agreed to play only if the letter was read over the loudspeaker at the game.
The principal refused to read the letter, but the school superintendent overruled him and directed that the letter be read. When it was, people in the stadium stood and applauded. And the insults stopped. Neto had scored a touchdown for tolerance. Combating racism in his town meant something to Neto Vil-lareal—and it may have been the biggest win of his career.
A GIRAFFE STORY
Andy and Vashti Hurst
Imagine a place about the size of Connecticut, a place that's hot and dusty in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter. It has no resources—no oil, gas, minerals, crops, or lumber. There are no theaters, nursing homes, or public transportation. A third of the houses don't have electricity or running water. Forty thousand people live in this place. Their unemployment rate is upwards of 85 percent. The infant mortality rate is 2.5 times the U.S. average, and the diabetes rate is 8 times higher. The tuberculosis rate is 10 times higher than in nearby areas. Life expectancy matches that of Haiti.
Imagine having to live there. Now imagine choosing to live there. Since 1993 Dr. Andy Hurst and his wife, Vashti, have chosen to live in this desolate place—the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, in the most prosperous country in the world, in its most prosperous time.
Although the Hursts had enjoyed life in Seattle and New York, they fell in love with the people of Pine Ridge, the Oglala Lakota (Sioux), when they spent a month there as part of Andy's residency program. Now “Doc Andy” provides medical care on the reservation, and the organization the couple founded, the National Association for American Indian Children and Elders (NAAICE), has created 30 support programs. These include programs for home ownership and for renovating homes and service facilities; for building wheelchair ramps, playgrounds, vegetable gardens, and outhouses; for distributing food, clothing, fuel, furniture, school supplies, Christmas gifts, and new-baby supplies; for running a basketball camp; and for managing volunteers who come from far and wide to work on NAAICE projects.
Perhaps even more important, the Hursts have become messengers to the rest of America, sounding the alarm about the dire situation at Pine Ridge and drumming up concern and concrete aid.
“We need to reverse our history of genocide against First Nations people, to see our own human rights issues instead of just pointing the finger at other countries,” says Andy Hurst. “We must help these good people.”
The Hursts will tell you they've gained more than they've expended in aiding the people of Pine Ridge—they gain every time an Oglala Lakota begins living a better life.
When Vashti Hurst is asked why they persist, she says, “Why do we go on? Because they go on. They are people of great dignity and grace. We know that other Americans will help when they realize what a crisis this is.”
image
The most powerful and positive motivation for sticking your neck out as an active citizen comes from the meaning that this work has for you.
People who lead meaningful lives don't find that meaning in possessions or positions; they find it in carrying out personal commitments to ideals bigger than themselves and their own needs—especially ideals of service, of working for the common good.
There is an issue out there with your name on it, something you care about, someplace where you can serve and make a difference.
If you've been energized by a single project, don't stop there. Use what you've learned the first time around to help others tackle the same problem—or to take on other causes that might benefit from your experience and contacts.
Active citizenship means more than just wishing something good might happen or cheering someone else on. It means investing your own time, energy, and resources. Ignore this and you muffle your voice, abdicate your responsibilities, and weaken your right to complain if things turn out badly.
WHAT'S NEXT? When you've found the issue with your name on it, the next steps are to learn all you can about it, design a specific project, and create a vision for its success.