Blog
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The Last Lecture
This past week, Randy Pausch, the man who made famous "The Last Lecture" passed away after battling pancreatic cancer. The lecture, intended for his children, moved millions of people -- but why? On the surface, many of his comments were cliche.
But he was on to something real, something we all wrestle with, and these are the same reasons why my own work is moving more and more in the direction of answering this question: "How can you make good on your urge to do good?"
Upon learning of his cancer, Dr. Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, decided to give what the Pittsburgh-based school calls the "last lecture." The topic: how to live life. Millions of people have now watched the lecture on YouTube, and tens of thousands have bought his book. Most major news outlets covered his death. Pausch offered simple insights into life, including these highlighted in a USA Today article:Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day because there's no other way to play it.
Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.
No one is pure evil. Find the best in everybody. Wait long enough and people will surprise and impress you.
Brick walls are there for a reason. They are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are these to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop people who don't want it badly enough.
It is not about achieving your dreams but living your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you
What's striking about his comments is their utter simplicity and directness. They give people a sense of grounding in a highly complex, fast-paced, and often convoluted society. His comments are reminders about things what we already know, but often forget. They ask us to act on what we know is the right thing to do.My own work over the years has focused on how people can create real change and authentic hope in communities. We've long focused on such questions as, why do some communities move forward and others don't? Or, what does it take to authentically engage people in an era of cynicism and retreat? Or, how can you create the conditions for change in a community; what does it really take to generate an environment in which change can emerge?
Over time I have come to believe that there is a second part to this work, a portion that is as important and vital as the types of strategic concerns I just mentioned. This part addresses each of us as individuals, and seeks to illuminate and answer the question: "How can we make good on our urge to do good?"
To answer this question requires each of us to articulate and examine our own aspirations to make a difference in people's lives. We must gain a genuine understanding of our aspirations, and learn how to stay true to our best instincts and hunches. This is more of a practice than a set of techniques or process. A way of seeing and being rather than a set of instructions.
Cliche though it may be, we are all on a journey, a journey to make good on our urge to do good. As on any journey there are forces and factors that push you off your path for change, disrupt your efforts, and draw your attention away from what is truly important.
The more I do this work, the more I see that what people want most of all are touchstones that ground them when their aspirations and values are questioned, undermined, clouded, tested, even devalued. That's why in the coming months we'll be unveiling new ways for public innovators, leaders, change agents, social entrepreneurs, and civic initiators -- call them what you will -- to discover and pursue their own paths for change while staying true to their aspirations.
What we say and do in life matters. That's the message from Professor Randy Pausch in "The Last Lecture." That's the inherent message in all of our efforts. Stay tuned.
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Where is the room for individual dignity?
Most of us never intend to turn someone else into the "other," but the exigencies of life have a way of wringing out individual dignity from our work. We can find ourselves running so fast to reach the finish line that we lose sight of why even started to run. We use certain words and phrases as short-hand, only to lose their meaning. We go all out to win vital arguments, only to create needless divisions that fail to reflect people's everyday experiences. How in your own efforts to create change are you making room for individual dignity?
In my own memory, it was around the time of Ronald Reagan that our nation took a sharp detour deep into the land of celebrating the power of the individual and shoving individual dignity to the side. Of course, the "individual" has always played a central role in American history and myth, but since Reagan we have increasingly viewed the individual as the almighty consumer, the all-knowing political force, the free-agent without commitments, the sovereign entity.
In our celebration of the individual, the reference point is me, myself and I -- even if it means turning away from others, or talking about people in ways that keep them at arms' length.- Thus we talk about "choice" in education, or other reforms, but often do not speak in terms of children and their vulnerabilities and feelings and real needs. The child gets lost in all the political speak and banter, the numbers and charts, the official statements and programs. And yet, we all know what it means to be a kid.
- We talk about long-term health care and
trot out hurting people as props in our
unfolding public drama, but somehow we do not
talk about what a care-giver truly goes
through and the mundane supports that they
need to make it day-to-day. And yet, it's not
too hard to envision yourself in this kind of
situation.
- Or, we talk about patriotism, as I did on Wisconsin Public Radio yesterday, as if its meaning resides within the confines of an ideological framework, a so-called battle between the right and left. And yet, we fail to see that each of us in everyday life is in search of ways to express our love of country, engage with one another, and get on with the unfinished work before us.
A fellow guest on the public radio program yesterday was Air Force Reserve Major David Frakt who in June made the closing argument in a high-profile Guantanamo Bay case. In reading over his closing argument I was especially moved by these words:
No one is "undeserving" of humane treatment. It is an unmistakable lesson of history that when one group of people starts to see another group of people as "other" or as "different," or an "undeserving" as "inferior," ill-treatment inevitably follows.
"Ill-treatment" can be defined in many ways. The Major was referring to torture. But while torture is an extreme example, everyday there are abridgments of individual dignity. Just this morning I heard a radio ad for listeners to donate funds to help "needy people." Just what would it mean to be part of the "needy people?" Must you show an identification card at the movies, wear only certain brands of clothing, attach a scarlet letter to your arm. How is it that we see other people's lives?
I can't imagine that most people intentionally squeeze out room for individual dignity. But I would say that we have lost a certain consciousness for it. If we talk about individual dignity, we do so only for a moment, before returning to business as usual. Or maybe we see something on television that touches on human indignity and makes us cry, only we quickly dry our eyes and "pull ourselves together." The problem we face is hidden in plain view. Will we see it? What will we do?
My point isn't that we should stop fighting for important causes. We must keep going. But under what conditions, I ask? We can achieve our goals but fail to make a difference in people's lives. We can have a great public or social mission but not work truly in the spirit of people. We can be standing right next to someone, and still not see or hear them.
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Great Books: Chasing the Flame
What flame are you chasing, and through the years what have you learned about yourself and what you need to do to make a difference? Maybe this is too simple a question to pose, but more and more I find people wrestling to figure out the right answer. This question is at the heart of the new book, Chasing the Flame: Sergio de Vieira De Mello and the Fight to Save the World, by Samantha Power, which I highly recommend to you.
You may be wondering why I am suggesting a book on the United Nations and one of its star officials; what can this story teach us? Bottom line: Sergio Vieira De Mello came face-to-face with many issues that those of us involved in change must ultimately address.
Vieira De Mello led critical UN missions at major flashpoints in recent history, including in Iraq, Bosnia, Lebanon, Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and East Timor -- each with its own thorny set of issues involving peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, and human rights. He was tragically killed in Baghdad in 2003, at age 55.
A Brazilian who earned a doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne, he was an idealist of sorts, like many of us. Over the years, his views on human nature and idealism came into clearer focus. Power reflects on Vieira De Mello's journey throughout the book. Here are four points I want to highlight, hopefully as a way for you to think about your own journey.1. Over time, Vieira De Mello became an outspoken advocate for human rights (relative to humanitarian aid). He began to think much more about the "human being," the individual as opposed to people en mass. This change resulted in him being concerned with the daily lives of people, rather than being focused simply on policy issues and programs.How often do you view your own efforts in terms of the unwashed "community" or "public" or "clients?" Do you see individuals, people who lead their own lives and are trying to improve their condition?2. Vieira De Mello came to believe that the dignity of individuals, communities, even whole nations sat at the crux of any effort to engage and work with people. Outsiders, he believed, must realize they can bring money, expertise and ideas to a place, but that their most important role was to support local leaders and processes to build local capacity. Local people owned their communities.How do you actively respect the dignity of people? In what ways do you place building people's own capacities and tapping their own aspirations at the center of what you do (and how often do your words and deeds match up)?3. Power writes that Vieira De Mello believed people must "probe deeply into the societies they were working in." But, he argued that leaders too often relied on their professional staff, outside reports, and similar means to tell them about a country. Instead, one must actively learn about people's culture, norms, language, traditions to understand them and know what matters.How do you understand the communities where you work -- people's webs of concerns, their aspirations, the norms and language people use, etc? To what extent do you truly "know" those communities (or only think you do)?4. In the book's intro, Power says of Vieira De Mello: "He had long ago stopped believing that he brought the solutions to a place's woes, but he had grown masterful at asking the questions that helped reveal constructive ideas."
What specific questions do you ask to help reveal people's constructive ideas about their situations, and how often does your own impulse to provide answers crowd out people's knowledge and voice?
Chasing the Flame offers insights into the life and thoughts of someone who faced up to difficult challenges, and seldom had the luxury to stand on the sidelines. He came to these fights with certain principles, and he had to examine their actual meaning as they were repeatedly tested in daily life, and then determine what was most valuable to him.
In many respects, this is the path for change each of us is on.
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A Wimbledon Tennis Lesson: The Grace We Need
We often see in sports what we wish could be true in everyday life. This weekend's epic Wimbledon men's final was the best example I've seen in years, when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal exhibited in the heat of battle a sense of grace that each us can only hope to embrace. There are lessons here for each of us and for public life.
Much has been written about the superior play in the Wimbledon final, but for me the most magical moment came when play ended. As Federer and Nadal approached the net for the customary handshake and perfunctory passing comments, something remarkable happened. The two men stood there grasping the other, their deep sense of affection for each other on clear display for all to see. In their on-court, post-match interviews, both spoke more about his opponent than about himself; each sung the praise of the other; neither sulked nor gloated.
Put yourself in their shoes: is this what we expect of them or ourselves?
Their display of grace went far beyond what anyone at NBC Sports or even the folks at Disney could have scripted. For in that moment when the match ends, with millions of people watching, glee or sadness takes over and drives one's behavior and spirit. We have all witnessed the miserable or dejected player at the end of a competition. One only needs to visit the nearest Little League field to know what I mean. What is remarkable is that these two individuals found a different path to take.
Each of us encounters situations daily when we face a choice about whether to usher in a sense of grace. Think about your own work situations, your own life, and consider these questions:
How do we see "the other person" -- our colleague, someone we're battling, an individual who threatens us in some way?
What do we do under pressure -- do we maintain some semblance of forthrightness and perspective?
What happens when we win -- do we hold a sense of gratitude, and an appreciation for the "gift," or do we want even more, believing that everything is to be had?
What do we seek to control -- do we believe that everything ultimately can be within our grasp, in our control, or do we see that an attitude of "all or nothing" will lead us astray in some way?
I have long believed that we must fight, and fight hard, to bring about the change we want in public life -- for instance, to ensure that all kids can get a good public school education. But what choices do we make as we take on that fight? What do each of us ultimately say and do?
My hope is that we engage with a sense of grace -- for our own sake, and for the health of public life. -
Yet Another Patriotism Hangover
Maybe it's no accident that Senators Obama and McCain are knee-deep in a war of words over the meaning of patriotism as July 4th approaches. But when our two presidential candidates spend their days in a war of words over patriotism, the queasiness from my post 9/11 patriotism hangover comes racing back. Unfortunately, the after-taste is strong and the symptoms are all-too-familiar.
The recent war of words began in earnest when retired Army General Wesley K. Clark went after McCain on Sunday's "Face the Nation". "I don't think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president," he said. Of course, the McCain camp fired back and even questioned Obama's rebuke of Clark.
Then on Monday Obama gave a defining speech on "patriotism" at the Truman Memorial Building in Independence, MO. The speech had been planned before the war of words, all part of a week-long effort on patriotism to shore up his standing among Americans.
The week before TIME magazine put the "meaning of patriotism" on its front cover, saying that "what we need going forward is a third-way patriotism, a new patriotism that blends the faith of our fathers with, as Lincoln said, the unfinished work remaining before us." The article suggested that both McCain and Obama are caught in a polarized debate and need to discover this so-called "third way."
Finding any way forward on patriotism is tough these days. After 9/11, we Americans felt deeply about our country. Many of us flew flags outside our homes (as did I), placed decals on our cars, and wore lapel pins. It wasn't that these expressions weren't real, but after time they had the quality of feeling shallow. Many of us wondered what we should do next. With whom were we to engage in this spirit of patriotism? Was going shopping enough, as the president suggested?
In Hope Unraveled, Americans told me that they could hear the window of opportunity to do something positive in the country slam shut, saying that we had lost the chance to tap into the sense of patriotism that so many people had expressed post 9/11. Today, I would argue an uneasy feeling exists among many Americans: how do we balance wanting to express heart-felt beliefs about love of nation, while wondering if our expressions are hollow or simplistic.
But the more McCain and Obama fight, the more our own sense of patriotism gets pushed aside, minimized, even trivialized. And yet, in 2008, I wonder how each of us would define the meaning of patriotism and its place in our daily lives? This is what I wish the candidates would find the courage to engage us on.
Thus in the coming days I want the two candidates to address us, not simply bark at each other. This current debate is unfolding as if we're all passive bystanders simply looking on. But nothing could be farther from the truth.
July 4th is about us -- we the people, and this our beloved nation. The two candidates should engage us in a conversation about the meaning of patriotism post 9/11. I want them to raise the stakes by asking us to think about and act on a definition of patriotism that speaks to our aspirations here and now. I want them to challenge us to step forward. I want them to help us gain clarity on the essence of patriotism in this new, changing world of ours.
This is an opportunity for each of the candidates to turn from themselves and toward us. And it is an opportunity for each of us to turn toward one another. Now is our time.