23 December 2009
Throw Out Your Perfect Standards
Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Guest Writer; Social awareness .
This is an excerpt from a speech given by Amy J. Delph at the 2008 EDISON Youth Achievement Awards Ceremony. Public service is a component of the award and here Amy is speaking about the need to do longer term public service projects and the benefits such projects have. Amy is the director of EDISON Enterprises, a company that specializes in programs that promote critical and creative thinking. Several homeschoolers have had stints with EDISON as well. You can find out more about these programs by calling her at 012-658-7587 or visiting the website.
A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO I READ a disturbing report about events in Haiti. The report began with this line, “It was lunchtime in one of Haiti’s worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. Charlene, 16 with a month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country’s central plateau. ”
I read further to discover that the price of food had gone up by 40%, not just in Haiti, but in many Caribbean island nations. People like Charlene make up 80% of the population of Haiti and they get by on less than $2 U.S. dollars a day. Two cups of rice (back then in January) cost .60 cents. When they cannot afford the food the poor turn to eating dirt cookies.
Food shortages and hunger are just one issue. We’ve all seen how high oil prices can reduce opportunities for education, health care and other needs for people. We also have natural disasters like cyclone Nargis and the earthquake in China. While we will always have natural disasters, poverty, environmental pollution, and other problems, the severity and frequency with which we are seeing these events take place sends a strong signal that we can no longer sit on the side lines and let others take care of the problems.
We don’t even have to go across the ocean to see the urgent calls for public service. We find them right here in our back yard. And by that I mean the extraordinary change in the political landscape of Malaysia. The results of the March 8th elections have shaken things up considerably and open opportunities for more voices to be heard and more avenues to take action. Furthermore, I believe the results have underscored an important principle of democracy and that is citizen involvement. That doesn’t mean only in political ways. Involvement in democracy includes concern for the sustainable well being of fellow human beings as well as of the environment in which we live. It includes awareness of and concern for human rights and a willingness to consider the views of others.
I believe we are in a unique time period. If we fail to promote a culture of civic involvement among both adults and our youth, then the new democratic space will close. Either the old powers will reassert themselves or new powers will gain control. We must remember that democracy requires us to be active stakeholders. We must not lose sight of the original roots of the Greek notion of government and democracy, which is citizens working together to determine the character and direction of their society. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher wrote, “All persons alike should share in the government to the upmost.
And so I have identified 3 important reasons why we should focus on voluntary public service:
The first deals with effectiveness of longer community service projects. The other two touch on the urgent signs that tell us that we dare not neglect community involvement.
But that is probably not enough to motivate you. Many of us are already aware of these issues, but we still resist active involvement. I think American writer and political activist Paul Loeb summed this resistance perfectly when called it the “perfect standard.” The perfect standard includes: The perfect time, the perfect cause and the perfect activist.
The Perfect Time
With the “perfect time” people believe they shouldn’t begin working for social change until the time is ideal. When the children are grown, when it’s not an exam year, after I finish my studies, etc. But we must realize that there probably is never going to be a time in our lives when we are not facing some kind demand or pressure. Paul Loeb says, “Instead each of us faces a lifelong series of imperfect moments in which we must decide what to stand for.” While we wait for the ideal time to arrive, weeks, months and years pass by. Our whole lives can go by before we fine the “perfect” time to get involved.
The Perfect Cause
With this one we want something that is easy to do and we will see results quickly and there is a perfect plan of action. In other words there is no uncertainty and the cause is already a winner. It has to be in the right location and must fit our schedules perfectly. As we wait for the perfect cause we squander repeated opportunities to involve ourselves in the larger community for causes whose reasons may be imperfect and whose outcome is far from certain – in other words, causes that are real.
The Perfect Activist
For this barrier, people of all ages feel they have to have all the knowledge and all the abilities required before they can get involved. They feel they have to have absolute understanding of the situation before wading in. That may be true of the fireman who walks into the burning building, but it is not the case for lending a helping hand in your community.
We don’t need absolute knowledge to get involved; we only need to have a sincere desire to make a difference. That desire is the starting point that puts us on the road to learn. We learn as we go, we learn from mistakes, we learn from our experiences and we learn from trial and error.
Take Tara Suri. When she was 12, she accompanied her parents on a visit to their homeland of India. While she was there, she was touched by the extreme poverty she witnessed all around her. When she returned back to the States, she decided to do something about it. Tara decided to raise money for orphanages in India and the Sudan. Did she know a lot about these orphanages or special techniques for raising funds? Did she have a lot of contacts that she could mobilize to raise millions of dollars? No. Tara started with what skills and knowledge she had. Her first effort was a bake sales and recycling used soda cans. Then she got her friends involved and started a club called HOPE. Step by step she and her friends worked on this problem. She has since joined forces with another NGO to form a website called Turn your World Around were she offers encouragement and practical help to young people who want to get active in making a change in their world.
The problem with our notion of the perfect activist is that we don’t think of people like Tara Suri. We look at people like Martin Luther King Jr. at the height of his influence and we think we need to be like that. But we have to remember that even Martin Luther King didn’t know everything about civil rights leadership before he started and he made mistakes and had failures too.
We do not make things worse by getting involved; getting involved helps things get better. In fact “knowing nothing” makes us easier to be around and easier to work with. We have no ego to get in the way! We should be like Tara Suri and take action despite our fears and less-than-perfect preparation.
How do we characterize a socially active person? Another wonderful quote from Paul Loeb says, “We are people of imperfect character, acting on the basis of imperfect knowledge, for causes that may be imperfect as well.” It seems to me that Mr. Loeb’s standard is one we can all live up to.
So we come back again to the question of, “What’s next?” Although as the leader of Edison Youth Achievement Award, I have answered that question, it reminds me of a saying about leadership. “If you think you’re a leading and you look back and no one is following, then you’re just taking a walk.”
The question has to be answered by each of you. If we are able to lay down our perfect standard, we can become an advisor for EYAA, opening an opportunity for five more youths to have the chance to grow in ways they never expect, just like you heard in today’s speeches. If we lay down our perfect standards, people like Charlene Duma don’t have to go hungry. And if we lay down our perfect standards we can shape this nation’s future rather than leaving it to rot in cynicism and indifference. How will you answer this question today?
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