A man stood alone on a shore where thousands of starfish had washed up.
One by one, he threw a starfish back into the ocean where it could once again live and thrive.
Another man passing by saw this and said to him, "What's the point? You can't possibly save all of them."
"You're right," said the man as he threw another starfish into the sea.
"But I can save that
one."
We've all heard some variation, or multiple variations of the phrase, "Change the world."
Gandhi's great quote, "Be the world you want to see in the change," is among the most famous of all of them. (Don't mind me, I'm just checking to see if you're paying attention.)
But for all the clamor and high-mindedness of the "change the world" memes floating around the Internet, we never actually ask the question, "How should I change
'the world'; assuming I can even identify which world I need to change?"
It gets to the point where it all blends into the morass of moral nothingness that defines our modern era. No wonder there's so much cynicism and skepticism in our world, even when we encounter a person or a group of people doing genuinely good things.
This is a big planet we inhabit, so it's maybe easy to think of "changing the world" to mean sending a check to the Salvation Army to
feed starving kids in Africa. Then you become familiar with the culture and economy of Africa and you realize our world is the true "third-world."
Rather than repost some high-minded platitudes on Instagram, see what you can do to change your own little world. If we lose focus of that, we've "missed the trees for the forest."
The vast majority of people live and operate in a tiny "world" that consists of a radius of 15-20 miles. This is where we live,
work, socialize; basically invest (or waste) about 99% of our time and energy.
I would argue this is the world we need to focus on changing on a daily basis.
And for the same reason we change diapers and politicians.
Things get dirty when we neglect our world; be it in dust accumulating in our house, trash accumulating on the sidewalk, or with resentment that builds and festers within our soul over a perceived insult which occurred
in 1973.
It's easy to think about a butterfly flapping its wings in Omaha, which in turn causes an earthquake in Zimbabwe. That doesn't cost us anything.
Forgiving someone who hurt us and coexisting in peace with them is definitely not easy. It costs us that pride we cling to like Sméagol clutching his precious ring.
Anyone can donate to the peace efforts in Palestine; but if we do so while neglecting or worse belittling someone
within our orb who has a genuine need, what good have we really done?
It's all window dressing if we neglect our world and take action without a spirit of genuine charity.
We can start a business with the intent of providing for our family. That's good and noble. But once it's off the ground, which is no small feat, what about operating that business with a true Ikigai, that has as its core mission to make the world around you
better?
Set things up to provide a tiny spark of optimism in a client or customer. It doesn't need to be major, in most cases you just need to plant a tiny seed which will blossom over time.
That is true profitability.