Let's Create an Opportunity for Good

Since this is Volunteer Appreciation Week, I thought it the right time to share something I have been thinking about for a while. People, in general, are quite generous when asked to help others who have experienced tragedy. Whether its donating to relief efforts for a natural disaster, responding to terror attacks or volunteering at the local food bank, most people have an altruistic bent to help their fellow human when in need.

But why do we wait to be asked? Why wait for bad things to happen before doing something good? Let’s create opportunities for good, instead of responding to bad.

As Twitter co-founder and Jelly CEO, Biz Stone, explained in an article for Harvard Business Review, we need to be “architects for opportunity”.

  “Some people think of opportunity the way it’s defined in the dictionary—as a set of circumstances that make something possible—and they talk about it as if it just arrives organically. You ‘spot opportunity’ or wait around for ‘opportunity to knock.’ I look at it differently. I believe that you have to be the architect of the circumstances—that opportunity is something you manufacture, not something you wait for.”

And while I believe Mr. Stone was referring to business opportunity, the same underlying thought should apply to opportunities to make a positive difference in the lives of others. We need to create opportunities for good.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10

I am the direct beneficiary of someone who decided to create an opportunity for good. His name is Clint Weaver, and several years ago he created his opportunity by signing up to be on the stem cell donor registry. For thousands of people with a rare blood cancer (me included), a stem cell or bone marrow transplant is their only chance at survival. And when Clint was told he was a match for someone in need, he didn’t hesitate to donate his stem cells to me.

“You don't have to be brave or courageous to do it” Clint says. “You just do it. The people who run this process went to school for a long time and have been doing this a while. I put an ounce of faith in humanity and managed to help another human being. You don't have to be perfect, and it's okay to be scared of the unknown but you have to "DO IT".

I’m not advocating you must do something as complicated and invasive as donating stem cells. In fact, the power of doing something good for others is in the repeatability, or the “pay it forward” effect. The point is, thanks to someone who didn't even know me, I got a second chance. And now I am more aware than I ever was before of opportunities to create good for others. And I know you can be, too, in whatever way has meaning for you. You have to be the architect of your own opportunities, then, as Clint said, “DO IT”.