Lucy Stone, an abolitionist and suffragist, a frontier in the women’s right movement whispered four words to her daughter on her deathbed, “Make the world better.”
Stone died almost three decades before the Nineteenth Amendment passed to allow women full voting rights, but her prominence in changing the landscape for women in the U.S. is both lasting and powerful. She made the world better.
I read this story about Lucy Stone in Adam Grant’s book, Originals. Undoubtedly, Stone’s life was brimmed with achievement, but it was the message she gave her daughter that became etched in my memory. Make the world better.
Everyone needs to hear those words. If ‘make the world better’ was whispered to more people by someone they love and admire deeply, both planet earth and societies around the globe would benefit. Our communities need it.
Imagine each of us starting every day with this as our purpose.
Frankly, we live in a time of false action. We have endless resources at our finger tips, literally, including access to articles and research like we’ve never had before, yet we form our opinions based on viral memes and videos. We post on social media and let our activism stop there. We have patented the phrase ‘everyone is too sensitive and easily offended’ as a conversation ender, to prevent us from having a meaningful dialogue with someone who shares different values than our own.
Your fight, whatever it is, is meaningful. Your purpose is valid. It doesn’t mean you have to do everything right, it means you have to do something. Anything. And just keep doing it.
I need people to fight for things I am not passionate about. I need to encourage them to read more, do more, learn more. I need to ask them questions, listen, and learn from the things they know and I don’t. I need to copy and paste that recipe for the issues that fuel my passion. You need that too.
The year is winding down. So is the decade. In comes a new slate, yours for the taking. Who did you help this year? Who did you help today or yesterday or the day before that? Ask your friends. Start there.
Before I go, let me whisper four words to you, “Make the world better.”
“I arise in the morning torn between the desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it difficult to plan the day.” – E.B. White
Sara
