Will my effort ever be enough?
You realized the world has plenty of problems. You decided that you care enough to stop merely talking, complaining or thinking about it. You now want to do something about it.
No matter what you decide to do, you quietly wonder if what you do is enough. How do you even define “enough”? What is enough for you? What is enough to solve a problem? If, in fact, will your involvement ever be enough to make a notable dent into the problem you are trying to solve, e.g., hunger, health, education, rights, global warming?
As discussed in previous posts, you can think about if it is more important that you are part of some organization that has a lot of impact (scale of impact) or whether you simply want to more directly feel the impact you are having – and that it is enough for you to be content with your contribution.
Each of us has different answers to this question. Our answers seem to have, however, some common criteria:
- Commitment – is after-work, part-time, or full-time only going to help you do what you wish to do? Is volunteering good enough or do you feel you need to do more?
- Organization – is joining the government, an NGO, social enterprise, corporation, private firm, or association most meaningful to you, if it plays any role at all in your consideration?
- Role – what specifically do you want do? Manage people? Engineer/design something? Plan something? Get your hands dirty? Traditional vs. CSR/sustainability title necessary? Do you need credit officially for your role? How much?
- Constraints – what is holding you back? Family obligations? Money? Pride? Health?
- Attitude – are you starting off highly optimistic about your individual contribution and the potential for impact you could have with the time you were given, or do you believe whatever you do is a “drop in the bucket” anyway so you might as well do what matters to you most while you can?
How do you rationalize this question before you “point, aim, shoot” upon your career – or before you make a change in whatever you are doing today so tomorrow matters more to you? What are your doubts, or your convictions, that what you do or plan on doing is the right thing for you?
(Note: use the “Leave a Reply” box below please to respond to this Weekly Ponder. If you have responses to others, please direct it to their specific entries. Although I call this “Weekly”, please continue to add to this when you see fit. I prefer conversations stay alive as long as people find them appealing and personally relevant.)
