CFC Blog #36: "I Don't Want To Save The World"

Pip, your piece reminds me of the "The Starfish Story" by Peter Straube where a young boy throws starfish one at a time back into the ocean so they don't die in the hot sun. He throws each one at a time, yet there are thousands and thousands along the beach. This young boy wasn't rescuing ALL the sea creatures, but he was devoted to making a difference for the few he could save. I think there is real beauty and power in that notion. 

- Amanda

"I DON’T WANT TO SAVE THE WORLD"

I might easily have been interpreted as callous or mean-hearted when about 15 years ago I said:

“I Don’t Want To Save The World”

The orientation of the conversation I was in was that solutions HAD TO “scale” to matter.

I didn’t have great words for it other than “I don’t want to save the world” but maybe what I meant was that I think each and everything along the way matters…   each smile we share with a stranger or our kindness with a cashier who has had a long shift…  everything…  and that when we get that sorta something sorta Silicon-Valley-ish “scale” thinking and maybe even a smidge of self-importance in us it might discourage the possibility for the beauty and grace and patience and gratitude and joy of continual tender mercies and “small" successes among seven billion people.

As far as I can tell none of even the best of us humans — with the exception of Will Smith in several action movies —  has yet accomplished this vague idea of “saving the planet” and I am thinking that the actions many might implicitly judge as merely “small” or “pointless” or “unscalable” might be under-rated.

And… if along the way we can cure XYZ well why the heck not!!!

I was walking down Park Avenue with a friend Michael Hawley a bunch of years back.   By age 38 – among many other things -- Michael had been fundamental in leading an effort that created 190 schools in rural Cambodia.

Astonishing!   

We were walking toward a celebration.  Two young kids were arriving from Bhutan – the next country Michael was involved in creating schools.

So… I looked over at him as we walked and I said “this must be an unbelievable feeling having set out with a big vision and look what has been accomplished!?”

He didn’t break stride and instead softly re-oriented me… 

“It’s just one relationship at a time.”

Thank you Michael.

Then this year I heard my initial intention of “I don’t want to save the world” far more helpfully put by a nun Pema Chodron:

“We don’t set out to save the world.  We set out to wonder how others are doing and to reflect on how our actions might affect their hearts.”