Change The World 101

Your first assignment is to watch this movie, if you have not already. I know the movie is a bit old, from back around the turn of the millennium. Nonetheless, it is a good movie about a young kid who is given an extra credit assignment to change the world, and actually acts on it! The movie tells an all to common story of a boy from a single parent home with alcohol problems. Naturally, you would imagine that not much would be expected from someone in such a situation, and the movie addresses that topic in a very powerful way.

While the specific term “pay it forward” is a more recent advent that was popularized, by Robert A. Heinlein in his book Between Planets, published in 1951:

The banker reached into the folds of his gown, pulled out a single credit note. “But eat first — a full belly steadies the judgment. Do me the honor of accepting this as our welcome to the newcomer.”
His pride said no; his stomach said YES! Don took it and said, “Uh, thanks! That’s awfully kind of you. I’ll pay it back, first chance.”
“Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it.”

The concept of paying it forward is nothing new it has been around a long time. Our founding fathers were in fact well keyed in on the concept and undoubtedly utilized it quite often in the founding of the United States. For example the concept was described by Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Benjamin Webb dated April 22, 1784:

I do not pretend to give such a Sum; I only lend it to you. When you [...] meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.

Basically the concept boils down to is the golden rule as described in the Bible Leviticus 19:34, Mathew 7:12, Luke 6:31. Further the concept of paying it forward can be keenly seen in the Good Samaritan story found in Luke 10:25-37, and the concept can also be seen well in the passage of Mathew 25:35-40 where Jesus says that what was done for the least of these was done for Him. The boy in the Pay It Forward movie really got this, and embodied many of the Biblical concepts with the three criteria he put forth for paying it forward: 1 It has to be something that really helps people. #2 Something they can’t do by themselves. #3 I do it for them, they do it for three other people. Albeit, the concepts are really general and simple, but yet that is the very thing that makes the concept so profound at the same time. The practice is really so simple in concept, and we can see its benefits and its liberating nature, but yet what so often happens is our nature of self preservation stands in the way of these simple concepts.

Pay It Foward

Again Hello World! It is amazing how the default WordPress title from the first post works so well with this site.  First I want to welcome everyone to Change The World 101, and invited you to bookmark the site or subscribe via RSS, which you can find a link to on the sidebar. 

Further, I would like to invite everyone to participate in the conversation here about changing the world.  To get us started I am going to give a little background on the reason for this site and some ideas on making change possible.  Then I will ask you to please share how you have personally done something or seen someone do something that you feel has had a large impact recently.  It does not necessarily have to be something large, as you will soon come to see small things can have tremendous impact too.

First, a little background I decided to start this site after a conversation with my friend and former partner Tim Linden about a website named RIPhoto.com (Now split in two: RIPhoto.com and RI-Photo.com/RIFoto.com).  When we were conversing about the situation he told me I was acting like I had changed the world with it.  After that I got to thinking you know maybe I didn’t change the world in a big way with it, but I certainly had an influence in my small corner of the world.  In fact I believe sometimes things are actually memorable and change inspiring in large part because they are initially small.  

Then I thought that while this is a major set back it can also be a great opportunity to launch new sites and continue with my vision of communicating and sharing both photographically and in writing the many historical and cultural facets of Rhode Island, The United States, and the World in general. 

Rhode Island is in fact a very small part of the world, maybe about 1,000 square miles, but yet Rhode Island is very influential and a real player in the New England area.  In fact its close proximity to New York, Harford, and Boston, makes it very important in many ways.  However, it is also important for history; that is a history of being fiercely impendent.  In fact the impendent man sits on top the state house and is one of the major symbols of Rhode Island even to this day.  Rhode Island is one of the unsung heroes in the foundations of this Nation.  A little known fact is that the first fighting of the Revolutionary War broke out here, in what is known as the Gaspee incident.  Later along the historical timeline Rhode Island became the birthplace of the American Industrial revolution, which began at Slater Mill in Pawtucket.  While Rhode Island is yet again in desperate need of change today, it has a history of quick and rapid change.  We see the Dorr Rebellion in the mid 1800’s and the government was virtually changed overnight.  Then again during the Green Revolution in the early 1900’s T. F. Green (for whom Rhode Island’s major airport is named changed the government literally overnight.     

So changing the world is not only possible, but has been done numerous times before and will undoubtedly be done again.  Even if these changes were only done in small ways we must never forget that the vast majority of change happens from the inside out (even on the rare occasions when changes happen from the outside in there are often key roles that we can play in the facilitating the change).    The key is making the lasting ethically upright changes, and that is done through a number of a way always from within first.  As historian Will Durant has said: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.”  This is true not only on a governmental level, but also on a small community and personal level.

Welcome to Change The World 101.  Stay tuned to for ideas on how to change the world.