Congratulations to the Gustavus Class of 2013, especially our 13 geography majors who graduated this spring! We will miss you. As you continue on life’s path, we wish you success, health, beauty, delight, and meaningful work and relationships.
Here are some words of wisdom from Jim Wallis, the founder and president of Sojourners, to “make your life count.”
10 Decisions You Can Make to Change the World
The common good and the quality of our life together will finally be determined by the personal decisions we all make. The “commons” — those places where we come together as neighbors and citizens to share public space — will never be better than the quality of human life, or the human flourishing, in our own lives and households.
Here are ten personal decisions you can make to help foster the common good.
1. If you are a father or a mother, make your children the most important priority in your life and build your other commitments around them. If you are not a parent, look for children who could benefit from your investment in their lives.
2. If you are married, be faithful to your spouse. Demonstrate your commitment with both your fidelity and your love. If you are single, measure your relationships by their integrity, not their usefulness.
3. If you are a person of faith, focus not just on what you believe but on how you act on those beliefs. If you love God, ask God how to love your neighbor.
4. Take the place you live seriously. Make the context of your life and work the parish that you take responsibility for.
5. Seek to develop a vocation and not just a career. Discern your gifts as a child of God, not just your talents, and listen for your calling rather than just looking for opportunities. Remember that your personal good always relates to the common good.
6. Make choices by distinguishing between wants and needs. Choose what is enough, rather than what is possible to get. Replace appetites with values, teach your children the same, and model those values for all who are in your life.
7. Look at the business, company, or organization where you work from an ethical perspective. Ask what its vocation is, too. Challenge whatever is dishonest or exploitative and help your place of work do well by doing good.
8. Ask yourself what in the world today most breaks your heart and offends your sense of justice. Decide to help change that and join with others who are committed to transforming that injustice.
9. Get to know who your political representatives are at both the local and national level. Study their policy decisions and examine their moral compass and public leadership. Make your public convictions and commitments known to them and choose to hold them accountable.
10. Since the difference between events and movements is sacrifice, which is also the true meaning of religion and what makes for social change, ask yourself what is important enough to give your life to and for.
Finding the integral relationship between your own personal good and the common good is your best contribution to our future. And it is the best hope we have for a better life together.
by Jim Wallis, CEO of Sojourners, from the Epilogue to On God’s Side
Great piece of advice. I like Number 4–take your place seriously. There is wisdom in the parish model of taking responsibility for a particular corner of the world.
Yes, I think we geographers will especially resonate with number 4!