Myth #1: “You can’t help everyone.”

Friend, mentor, and inspiring humanitarian Marc Gold once asked, “If the ship is sinking and you can swim, who would you save?”

Naturally, I answered, “I would save whoever I could.”

“Then do that.” He said solemnly.

Think about that. Would Marc ever perpetuate this myth?

Look closely and you’ll see that what Marc was doing was giving me a brief lesson in setting goals to scale. Help who you can first. He by no means meant to imply we should acquiesce to hunger, poverty or other forms of the world’s ailments. This is clear enough if you’ve seen his work.

But how many times have you heard this? Is it the truth? How would conversations sound if we replaced “You can’t help everyone.” with “Did you try your hardest?” or “What could we have done differently to be more effective?

Lets not fall for this line. The world in in chaos–lets join together and collaborate, we can stop for tea and talk philosophy later.

-Dwight Turner

Editor, In Search of Sanuk