While getting to know some new friends, I was asked, “So, what do you do?” After explaining the framework for The Purpose Project, and our goal to inspire more young adults to take on the problems that are confronting our world, a conversation that started as small talk quickly turned into a spirited discussion.

Like many other members of our generation, the group around the table that day was frustrated by the issues that fill the news: the state of our environment, our political system, our economy, just to name a few. Momentum seemed to build as people took turns pointing out the causes or the implications of an issue and sharing the ways in which social issues present themselves in their lives. But after the venting subsided, the energy that had filled the conversation disappeared as quickly as it had come. What was the source of this sudden buzz-kill? That persistent, and difficult to answer question: “What can we do?”

It seems that while most of us readily recognize what is wrong, it’s much harder for to figure out what we can do to help make it right. We’re paralyzed by the complexity of both the causes and the effects of the issues that surround us. The challenges seem too great; our potential contribution seems too small. So, we resign ourselves to living in an imperfect world, and turn our attention inward, towards finding personal satisfaction and fulfillment in spite of the “external” factors that seem beyond our control. Which is exactly how our conversation over lunch concluded.

After that experience I decided to try to come up with an answer that I could have at the ready the next time a conversation ended with a “What can we do?” But, after mulling the question over extensively and canvassing the websites of other civic engagement organizations for their suggestions, I still couldn’t point to any all-purpose solution. A magic bullet doesn’t exist.

But, part of the problem may be our willingness to concede defeat so easily. It may be that the first thing that we need to do to help improve the world around us is believe that change can happen. Today’s headlines are not a permanent diagnosis for the future–at least they don’t have to be. Change is possible, but people have to believe in that possibility first.

Simply believing in change may not seem good enough for most of us who have grown up in a society obsessed with immediate results and achievement. However, as we are learning from the leaders who we are working with, change starts small, but grows on faith, optimism, and resolve.

So, perhaps believing in the possibility of change is a good place for us to start. Because with belief that problems can be overcome comes the courage to act–to take the first of those incremental steps towards creating measurable change. And once we take those steps, we’ll start to see the power of our actions. And others will too, encouraging more belief, and sparking more action–collective and cooperative action, which will start to create the results that we have been hoping for. Movements aren’t founded on ideas, they’re founded on beliefs.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Thoughts and Questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.