Making a Difference Before We are "Adults"

For the past couple weeks, I have been reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. The book is a deep look into the work of Dr. Paul Farmer, a physician specializing in infectious disease, who has accomplished great work in Haiti and several other third world countries. You can check out some of his work at his non-profit's website, Partners in Health (http://www.pih.org/).

Farmer is a fantastic physician, and an incredible human being for the selfless work he does every day. His noble values and unyielding motivation are amazing to read. What stood out most about what Farmer has accomplished are not his actions per se, but the time period he got involved in his work. Farmer was reading extensively about Haiti, learning its history, and beginning to travel to the country in college! By the time he was in medical school at Harvard, Farmer was flying to Haiti regularly to do medical work. He established his non-profit "Partners in Health" to help fund his work in Haiti in 1983, he was 24.

While it is easy to write off Farmer of as uniquely exceptional, I refuse to believe that it is impossible to do what he has done. And I don't mean medical work. While we can't all start non-profits in Haiti, I think it is very possible for each one of us to find our passion, start running for it, and never look back. Dr. Farmer inspires me to work for my passions even when I haven't "earned my stripes" yet. It is still possible to build programs and organizations and actively change the world, even without a D-R dot or any sort of certification. If you believe you can accomplish things, you can.

I think of how John Mayer's song, "Waiting on the World to Change" always bothered me for some reason. Mayer sang about how we are all "waiting on the world to change" because it is "hard to beat the system when we're standing at a distance." We may never be able to fix the entire system, but Farmer inspires me to try to fix one thing we are passionate about. Regardless of where we are, who we are, or how qualified we may be if we are passionate about something, we can channel that passion into action and change things. Lets not wait on things to change while we sit idly, but be change agents in our organizations, schools, and work places.

Ghandi once said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Dr. Farmer is proof of how one person could be that change.

Credits:

Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder [Amazon Link]
Jeptha for the Blogger Pact of 2013