One of the things about aging that is fascinating to me is watching how people start thinking more, again, about how their life might make a difference in an arena larger than one’s personal life.
When we are young, there is an energy many of us feel about wanting to help… people, planet, animals…whatever…because we ‘feel’ the world’s afflictions more than we seem to as busy, harried adults and parents. We don’t just give to causes when young…we enlist in them, whatever they might be, because we ‘feel’ the sense of outrage and compassion that comes with being able to place oneself in the place of the other. The lessons of parents and others about ‘put yourself in their place’ really impacts us, and we cannot but help to empathize with those for whom life has not been so kind. We take our religious tenets to heart, and seek to care for the suffering world with our bodies and minds.
Then we take on the roles of ‘adulthood’ that our society has deemed as important. Job, marriage, parent, car and home-owner. Suddenly, the demands of the immediate world lessen our empathy, our ability to stand in another’s ‘place’ and feel what they feel. We shut it out, not with necessary intent, but with life busy-ness. And, ownership and parenting begins to make us ‘feel’ more about the world immediate to our ‘self’, instead of the poor of Appalachia, inner city poverty, global wars and so on. Our ‘caring about others’ gets translated to donations, an arms distance and more from the suffering. We move from missions of sweat and tears, to missions of contracting others to evangelize and politicize.
Along comes the ending of immediate parenthood, and the approaching of, and ending of, being tied to ‘the job,’ and our heads again begin to focus on other things. The world creeps back in…we feel again the suffering of others. We hear people speak more and more about wanting to do something that ‘makes a difference.’ Some refer to it as ‘leaving something for posterity, leaving a meaningful legacy.’
A friend of mine who works in municipal water treatment is one of these people who badly ‘wants to make a difference.’ A wonderful character, who just love the science of clean water, drinkable water, he’s invented a technology that cheaply produces drinkable, clean water for villages in developing economies. As a purifying technology, it has applications in municipal water supplies here as well, including drinking water, swimming pools, hot tubs, and so on. He’s ‘poured’ time into his invention to make it technologically ‘convivial’ (human friendly) and inexpensive, so people in developing economies can afford it. But even large cities here are asking him to prepare bids for their upgrades as they look at treating waste water as well as drinking water under the new government regulations.
His drive? “Everyday, 10-11,000 children die from water-borne illnesses. They don’t have to…it’s a political decision, weapons rather than water, security rather than development. In my lifetime, while I still can, I am going to do everything I can to really dent that number” He’s now installed these systems in villages in a dozen different countries at least, and the impact is both immediate and sustaining. In a village in Africa, that has a ‘baby graveyard’ of hundreds of crosses, the installment of his water purification system has resulted in not one infant dying in the last year due to water-borne illnesses. He’s seen the same result in a town isolated by leprosy. They’re now installing in schools in Central America.
Late in his career, looking down the road and seeing retirement…he wanted to make a difference. And he’s doing it well. We’re preparing to introduce his work into West Africa. Big, beautiful, gentle soul. And he’s driven to help kids.
Fascinating how life has these two different periods in which we understand ‘making a difference’ to mean doing something larger than our immediate world and that draws us to give of our time, our energy, our creativity, and our hearts in such a complete way.
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| Age & Making a Difference |
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unionman154
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Apr 16 @ 6:16PM
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This is a beautiful story. Thanks for sharing it with us all.
I was recently contacted by phone by a charity for navy vets asking for a donation. I told them to send me their literature, and I would donate twenty dollars. I got their letter in the mail, and was about to write a check, when they called back asking if I had sent my donation. Just out of curiosity I asked just how much of my donation went to their over head. The guy said 80percent went to their over head. I don't have to tell you they didn't get a donation from me.
Why our government allows so called charities to keep 80 percent of the money given them is beyond me. I am going to write my congressman to complain, about such laws that allow so called charities to exist. Just a word to the wise check out charities before giving. paul.
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redtigr
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Apr 16 @ 11:10PM
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I kudo'd this earlier as I rushed off to work. I want to agree with unionman on what a great "little" story you've presented.
It's never too late to make a difference; it's never too late to demonstrate that though charity may begin at home, it should continue to reach out to those with the greatest need.
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lacyvsq
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Apr 16 @ 11:43PM
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Glad you meet people like that! I wish I met more like him! thanks for the blog.
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observed50
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Apr 17 @ 9:13AM
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Union> While we're checking into the money and its use in charities, we ought to find out how tax dollars are spent. How much actually accomplishes something versus disappears into the hands of the few...
Tigr> thanks for the kudo! I love the sense that people find a drive to be of service. That is a wonderful phenomenon. Now...if we could just channel that into really substantive social change that corrodes the foundations of poverty, inequality, war. What a service!
Lacy> I find these people all the time. I know my work benefits by pulling such people out of the woodwork, and my experience is that they are everywhere. But because they are humble of small egos, their presence is a light in darkness only when one understands their light and the nature of the darkness they illuminate.
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