A Force for Good is a book that changed my life. I’ve always been someone who wanted to make a difference in the world. I don’t mean to say that in a self-complimentary way. I’ve come to realize that my need to make a difference is actually a sign a narcissism (aka it’s important for me to feel that I matter.)
But since mine is a harmless form of narcissism, I’m not so embarrassed by it.
Anyway, even if I wanted to matter I really couldn’t figure out how to start (or even why I should try.)
A Force for Good helped my feel less overwhelmed and showed me 4 important things:
- I have to frame each goal into a positive challenge. Keep in mind that, to capture the hearts of millions, Martin Luther King Jr. started his famous speech with, “I have a dream”, not “I have a nightmare.”
- I can’t feel guilty about my impact on the world. Just by being alive and trying to keep that status going for at least 70 years or so, I’m doing all kinds of damage to the environment – thank you, creator of the Life Cycle Assessment project for pointing that out to me. Still, guilt shows that I actually care about the environment. Now I just have to do something where I can make my existence a benefit to nature also, because I sure enjoy life and I would not want to die early just to stop from damaging the earth. I have to use my wonderful brain to make this into a win-win game. Bianca wins, Nature wins – that’s a challenge worth solving.
- I have to take action. Even if it’s baby steps, I have to take action.
- I won’t see the results of many of my actions. I have to be more like like Captain Cook who, in 1774, started planting seeds for trees that could potentially make ships stronger (by the way, those trees ended up making lousy ships), I have to be happy planting seeds for future ships. Or houses. Or … whatever. 🙂 The idea is that immediate results are not always possible. And, my results loving nature has to learn to accept that.
Those are the 4 main things I learned from A Force for Good. While I think that the book could have been a little better written – oh, the joy a writer gets from criticizing the writing of another writer :-)) – I also think it’s a wonderful read for anyone who wants to feel they matter and wants to make a difference – whether they are narcissistic or not.
If you want to buy A Force for Good, here’s the link to it. As you know, I’m a minimalist and I rarely buy anything. So I don’t recommend you buy this book. I just recommend you read it. 🙂 That’s why libraries are a wonderful thing to have.
Should you decide you want to own this book though, then I’m making it super easy for you to spend your money.