5/25/2020 Giving more than we take
Today is set aside in our calendars to mark our collective memory of those who lost their lives in military service. If you are remembering a loved one, a veteran or someone lost to the horrible violence of war, I send hugs and love.
I listened to an interview yesterday that prompted me to consider what such sacrifices represent: what is this notion of the United States of America, of "freedom" and "opportunity" and "created equal?"
The interview was with Jacqueline Novograth, who describes a "moral revolution" needed to truly inhabit those notions. She leads Acumen, a venture capital fund focused on the poorest people in the world. Her background includes setting up microfinance banks in Rwanda prior to the genocide.
It might seem strange to find such affinity with a venture capitalist; but Ms. Novograth voices the moral imagination needed to transform traditional capitalism into an inclusive, human-centered economy that focused on what we can contribute to our communities and our planet. As we examine the ways our economic system is broken - was broken before the pandemic, and is even more visibly, heart-wrenchingly broken now - the call to bring a moral revolution is loud and clear.
If you have an hour, you can listen to the entire interview (or read the transcript) here: https://onbeing.org/programs/jacqueline-novogratz-towards-a-moral-revolution/
I'll share some of the quotes I found most powerful here.
What if the golden rule were not ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ but, also, ‘Give more to the world than you take from it’?
We’ve got to think about the opposite of poverty being dignity or having opportunity and choice.
...we in the United States, who have so much in common, can find our ways to heal ourselves and to see ourselves in each other again — that we have a common endeavor in this country, to build a country where we can make good on the promise that all men were — and women — were created equal. And then we can help extend it to everyone on the planet, because we represent the planet now in ways that have so much to teach if we would just take that privilege seriously.
And it’s really our individual and collective obligation, in a world that focuses too much on our rights and not enough on our responsibilities, ... to take that work forward and imagine and then integrate human dignity, sustainability, and elevate the best of ourselves and bring ourselves to each other. And I think, in this moment of such peril and possibility, if we tapped into that stirring, that awakening, we really could build a world like the world has never seen before. And if there was ever a decade to do it, it’s this decade.
Whatever you aim to do, whatever problem you hope to address, remember to accompany those who are struggling, those who are left out, who lack the capabilities needed to solve their own problems. We are each other’s destiny. Beneath the hard skills and firm strategic priorities needed to resolve our greatest challenges lies the soft, fertile ground of our shared humanity. In that place of hard and soft is sustenance enough to nourish the entire human family.
"We are each other's destiny." That has never been more visible in so many ways. As someone with the privilege, at least for now, of holding onto my health and my income, I aspire to fulfill the challenge to give more than I take.
I am, as always, grateful to be on this journey together with so many fellow humans who have always given me more than they take. Thank you.