This week I got a message from a friend telling me about an organization he was starting. This organization will find the fatherless children in his small city and pair them with male volunteers who can become like honorary fathers to them.
I thought this was a brilliant idea. I grew up fatherless, and I know what growing up fatherless can do to a child.
I immediately wanted to start my own organization in my city.
The problem is that I’m already working on building an organization. A couple, actually. They all have the same intersection (the disadvantaged), but my limited time cannot handle another facet of it.
As much as I want to do it all—because there are so many people in our world who need help—I can’t. I am limited by time, energy, and resources, and if I try to spread what time, energy, and resources I have between all of the problems of the world, I will be inefficient at addressing even one of them.
This is where corners come in.
My stepfather used to enjoy watching boxing. If you’ve ever seen a boxing match, you know that when a round is over, boxers retreat to a corner. This is their corner where they plan their next course of action, where they analyze their previous strategy, where they regroup and prepare to go back out into the ring and win the match.
Corners are the same for us.
We all have our corners of the world—the places where we can do the most good. There are a lot of corners in the world, though, and sometimes we get caught up in wanting to defend them all. We can’t. It’s simply not possible. There are too many needs in the world to personally address them all, and if we try, we will find ourselves unable to address even the one that presses the hardest on our heart.
We have to find our corners, and—here’s the real challenge—we have to draw our boundary lines around them. The worst thing we can do for our corner is add another corner and then another and then another.
There are times when I have spoken out about my corner of the world. And, inevitably, acquaintances will question my passion. They will say, “If you care so much about that, why don’t you care about this?” It’s not that I don’t care about “this.” I care about a great many things. It’s just that I know my corner. And in order to become the greatest force of change I can possibly be, I have to stay in that corner. I have to trust that others will step up and into that other corner.
So how do we find our corners?
I believe that process is unique to every person. But I also believe that we can start with our passions, our experiences, and our expertise. Often, where those things collide, we will find ourselves in the corner where we can make the most difference.
So go find your corner. And change a piece of the world.
