One of the few things I know about my career is that
- after five years of corporate life, I will be taking a moment and re-evaluating whether I really want to stay there. So now itself, started short-listing things I can do if i decide to quit corporate world.
One Evergreen Option is to become a Professor in some well known college [There is nothing more exciting than entertaining 60+ students for a hour but still managing to add some value - that too, not for a single day, but for a whole semester.. Hmmm.. Looks tough enough for me..]
Another option - To join some social service organization and 'World Vision' heads that list of social organizations I would like to join. So I was very much interested on seeing the heading "Ten (or so) questions with Richard Sterns, President of World Vision" in Guy Kawaski's Blog - "How to change the world". Worth a read for anybody who wish to leave the corporate world and 'go out and change the world'.
Certain Excerpts I liked from the interview -
"..... Today, we live in a world that tolerates extreme poverty much like racism was tolerated fifty-plus years ago. We can all become people determined to do something to change the world. We can speak up, we can volunteer and we can give. Ending extreme poverty will take money, political and moral will, and a shift in our value system. When enough ordinary people embrace these issues, things will begin to change. Margaret Mead once said: "Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ...."
Question: What's the biggest obstacle to get rich people to care about poor people?
Answer: The obstacle is that poverty is often not personal. If your next-door neighbor's child was dying and you could save her for $100, you wouldn't think twice. But a child 10,000 miles away whom you have never met, that's just different.
About 29,000 kids die every day of preventable causes--29,000! These kids have names and faces, hopes and dreams. Their parents love them as much as we love our kids. We've got to make poverty personal. Stalin once said: "A million deaths is a statistic, one death is a tragedy." We must try to see the face of the one child. "
Hope poverty in a far-away land also becomes personal to each one of us.
- after five years of corporate life, I will be taking a moment and re-evaluating whether I really want to stay there. So now itself, started short-listing things I can do if i decide to quit corporate world.
One Evergreen Option is to become a Professor in some well known college [There is nothing more exciting than entertaining 60+ students for a hour but still managing to add some value - that too, not for a single day, but for a whole semester.. Hmmm.. Looks tough enough for me..]
Another option - To join some social service organization and 'World Vision' heads that list of social organizations I would like to join. So I was very much interested on seeing the heading "Ten (or so) questions with Richard Sterns, President of World Vision" in Guy Kawaski's Blog - "How to change the world". Worth a read for anybody who wish to leave the corporate world and 'go out and change the world'.
Certain Excerpts I liked from the interview -
"..... Today, we live in a world that tolerates extreme poverty much like racism was tolerated fifty-plus years ago. We can all become people determined to do something to change the world. We can speak up, we can volunteer and we can give. Ending extreme poverty will take money, political and moral will, and a shift in our value system. When enough ordinary people embrace these issues, things will begin to change. Margaret Mead once said: "Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ...."
Question: What's the biggest obstacle to get rich people to care about poor people?
Answer: The obstacle is that poverty is often not personal. If your next-door neighbor's child was dying and you could save her for $100, you wouldn't think twice. But a child 10,000 miles away whom you have never met, that's just different.
About 29,000 kids die every day of preventable causes--29,000! These kids have names and faces, hopes and dreams. Their parents love them as much as we love our kids. We've got to make poverty personal. Stalin once said: "A million deaths is a statistic, one death is a tragedy." We must try to see the face of the one child. "
Hope poverty in a far-away land also becomes personal to each one of us.
