Sunday, May 01, 2005

Ideas That Make A Difference

Are your ideas making a difference?

As all the other Idea Consultants will no doubt agree, sometimes your ideas have to be bigger than yourself. Sometimes your ideas have to be about giving (paying forward) rather than receiving. After all, if the world cannot continue to prosper then neither will you or I.

Take myself for example: It’s not a big thing when you consider the world as a whole, but you can bet the eventual winner of the first annual Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere Election will no doubt be proud to have been the first Poet Laureate in the history of the world to be elected to his or her post.

The truth: I would love more than anything in the world to be elected to serve as the first Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere. Problem is: I could see no fair way to preside over an election in which I was a candidate so I chose to sit this one out in the interest of the common good.

Now don’t make me out to be some sort of saint-- I’m not. The truth is that I have already gained from this election in ways that can be measured as well as ways that can’t, but I thought it an important idea that a poet laureate finally be elected rather than appointed by some nameless, faceless politician, board, or bureaucrat. I’ve always had issues with how our various laureates are crowned so I decided to do something about it.

Who knows, maybe it will come back to me in the future, but even if it never does I’ll know I did a little part to try and make a difference. After all, life is full of failures and I’m no different than anyone else.

So give it some thought. Is there something you can do, change, reactivate, repair, revitalize, revamp, or otherwise make better? Whether it’s picking-up trash from the streets in your neighborhood, finding a cure for cancer, or anything in-between, I’m sure the world-- as well as your heart-- will be a better place for your having worked to make it better.

I’ll be back in a few days with some ideas you can do for yourself. Until then, why not think about making the world a better place in which to live? After all, there is profit in it.