| North Americans are lonelier, unhappier and more disconnected from one another than ever before, yet many keep striving for self-fulfilment and happiness by scrambling to make more money to buy more possessions, resorting to fad diets and plastic surgery, and consuming scads of self-help books.
But what if, instead of focusing on ourselves, we focused on our broader communities or even the global community? What if giving back to the world actually made us happier than devoting all our time and energy to ourselves? That’s what Craig and Marc Kielburger are asking people to think about in their new book Me to We: Turning Self Help On Its Head.
"We think this is a movement whose time has come," says Craig Kielburger, who was in Calgary recently to promote the book. "We think that, fundamentally, we’ve reached that point in our culture where we’ve been so saturated by that ‘me’ message, that ‘me generation,’ that we are looking – we’re desperately searching, in many cases – for something more meaningful, more fulfilling."
Kielburger isn’t afraid to admit that he wants to change the world, but when he states this lofty goal you have to take him seriously because he already has. And he’s only 21.
When Kielburger was 12, he read a newspaper article about a young boy in Pakistan who escaped from his employer and was murdered for speaking out against child labour. That story led him to found Free the Children, which is now an international organization that has helped thousands of children around the world. He and his brother Marc also created an organization called Leaders Today, which has trained over 300,000 youth in North America to become leaders in their communities and the world.
Kielburger says they decided the new book was necessary to motivate and inspire people to take on a cause and try and make the world a better place, as he and his brother already have. He says there may be a perception or fear that if you get involved in trying to change the world, it will be emotionally overwhelming and utterly depressing, but he says it’s often the exact opposite.
"At the end of the day, it’s a choice. It really is. I think the most depressing are the people who choose not to act. I think those who simply see the suffering on television or walk past the homeless person and feel the pangs of guilt, or who know child poverty exists in our community and they do nothing, I think they’re the ones who feel the absolute worst," he says.
In Me to We, the Kielburgers describe their own personal experiences fighting against injustices. There are also essays from activists and celebrities such as Jane Goodall, Oprah Winfrey and Archbishop Desmond Tutu about the paths their lives have taken. Perhaps most inspiring are the stories from ordinary people who decided to take action, such as New York teacher Keith Taylor, who decided to start giving 10 per cent of his monthly income to needy people who didn’t qualify for assistance through conventional charities. Taylor founded an organization called Modest Needs, which has given away about $250,000 to various people since 2002.
The book also outlines concrete action people can start taking in their community. Kielburger thinks reading the daily newspaper, for example, should motivate them.
"You can look at (newspapers) as, ‘Here’s all that’s wrong with the world.’ You open up most newspapers and there’s the old adage, ‘If it bleeds, it leads,’ and so most often we see these horrific stories," he says. Instead, the newspaper should be seen as a menu of causes. "Every morning we are presented with a new call to action showing all these issues in the world that need your help, and you can pick and choose. And instead of feeling sad about it, instead of feeling angry about it, here’s how you can help."
Kielburger describes himself as "shamelessly idealistic," but he believes the Me to We movement is already beginning because people don’t like the world they live in.
"I think, fundamentally, our society can never be fully happy even if we create that ideal bubble for ourselves, even if we get that white picket fence and 2.3 children and have every latest gadget," he says. "When we turn on the news, we still see the suffering. And we can try and block it out, but then we have to walk down the street and we’ll see the homeless people. Then our children are going to ask us these questions and, at the end of the day, we look back at our lives and we ask, ‘What type of legacy did we leave?’" |
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