Finally, A New Blog!

Hello to everyone! I know it’s been a long, long time since the last blog. This pause in the action is unusual for The Humanity Project – and there have been many reasons for it. Basically, I have been focusing my efforts on building a stronger live organization here in South Florida so we can get the people and funds to do more. More for kids and adults here and elsewhere, in the community and online. We have big plans and big ambitions. One of the major current projects is developing our program of unconditional giving for the schools, where it can work effectively as an anti-bullying program. As the author of 23 books for young people, I know our system can be very useful in reducing bullying.

In addition to all this, I was away for nearly a month on a travel assignment. Since I’m not paid at this point by our organization, whose money is limited, I have to earn my living doing writing for magazines, blogs and other places. It was an amazing trip – Australia, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Philippines and Hong Kong. I learned a lot, including many things that directly have influenced my thinking about The Humanity Project and how to do what we do even better. But it was long time away from South Florida too.

Anyhow, I’m back and we’re moving forward. We’re making efforts to beef up our board of directors with new people, new ideas and new sources of income for our nonprofit group. The Executive Service Corps of Broward County is helping us with that. We’ve also begun a campaign for new members and volunteers. And we need your help! Please join us – it’s only $75 a year and your donation will support our work and add your voice to our group. Just go to the “Join the Project” page on our website to make a secure credit card donation. I’ll be back in this space soon with new stories and new ideas about how unconditional giving really can help you lead a happier, more meaningful life – and help others at the same time. Help Yourself, Help Humanity. That’s what The Humanity Project is all about!

This is the second in a series of original modern fables by The Humanity Project. They are short, fun, fictional tales that we think will help demonstrate key points of The Humanity Project message. We hope you’ll enjoy “The Tale of Generous Jen.”

The Tale of Generous Jen

Upon some time lived Jennifer once. Writing a children’s book, she was, all in lovely scented verse. Writing only once, perhaps twice, a month. Perhaps. When she could find some time.

This was how Jennifer’s scented children’s book began:

“Music comes alive at night, you know.
Every note has ears to hear.
It listens for the first sound of your snore.
And waits for your dreams to come near.”

Enchanted imagination was Jennifer’s great gift, telling us of things no one else could think to tell. Much more than these few lovely words, oh yes, Jennifer had almost written. But all the rest was still locked inside her head, just dancing and humming to get out for some young someone-else to read.

Just when Jennifer’s words would be unlocked free, oh my – this was anyone’s guess. If those words would ever be unlocked at all. Because Jennifer was so generous, you see. “Generous Jen,” her family all called her. Jen’s fingertips were usually far too busy helping someone else with something else for those fingertips to unlock her enchanted imagination. Whether that help for someone else was needed much or not.

No matter how many other fingertips were busy baking cookies for the church bake sale, Generous Jen always volunteered her fingertips too. No matter that her mother rarely wore some pair of worn pants – Generous Jen hemmed them up some half-inch higher with her busy fingertips. Just in case her mother changed her mind. Every friend who didn’t really need help packing up to move got Jennifer’s generous help anyway. Every friend of a friend who didn’t really need a ride to the airport got their ride anyway from Generous Jen.

There was not a “no” bone in her body any time anyone hinted they might prefer a “yes” from Jennifer. Always giving, giving, giving something or other to someone who didn’t really need her smallish gifts. That was Generous Jennifer.

If that’s what real giving really means, of course.

Because some gifts are gifts much easier to give than others, perhaps. Perhaps.

Much easier to give, at least, than writing scented verses.

At The Humanity Project, we believe “Generous Jen” isn’t really giving her best. But we also feel sure that she could. Our 10-point program can help Jennifer free that enchanted imagination – and the other great qualities that make her a unique individual with much to offer the rest of us. We all have that same potential, each in our own way. Learning to give the best in ourselves to others throughout each day, without expectation of reward or fear of rejection, can help release that potential. We hope you’ll want to join The Humanity Project to find out how a giving life can make you happier. And we hope you’ll tell your friends about us too!

Small Things

Something happened to me the other day that may help to illustrate what we mean by a “giving lifestyle.” And it might also help to show how small things we do spontaneously throughout a day can make a difference to someone else.

A young woman called me up to sell an insurance policy of some kind. She was pleasant, with a warm and gentle voice. I declined politely, as I always do with telephone solicitations, and asked if she would take me off her call list. She agreed with a sweet, “Yes sir,” and was about to hang up. But a thought occurred to me just then and I blurted out, “Before you go …” So I told her what I’d been thinking during my conversation with her: “You have a very pleasant voice and manner on the phone. It made a difference. Even though you didn’t make a sale, I wanted you to know.” She thanked me in a way that suggested the remark had meant something to her.

I had found a small opportunity to express myself through an action that might help someone else, just a tiny effort to reach out during my day. But who knows what impact my comment may have had on this young woman? Maybe it provided nothing more than a brief ego boost before it rolled off her back. But maybe not. Haven’t we all had the experience of hearing just the right comment at just the right moment in our lives – and always remembering those words? I know I have. It’s possible that my remark will help deepen her self-confidence somehow. Maybe the fact that someone went out of their way to say something nice will touch her and help renew her faith in humanity. Who knows? But it can only do something positive, I think. I offer all this, not to call attention to my own minor action, but rather to illustrate that small things CAN make a difference. And that doing those small things, and the larger things that we also can contribute to others – that’s what we’re talking about at The Humanity Project. Living a giving lifestyle. It helps others, it helps ourselves. And it can help to make a better world.

Service To Others: One Perspective

I want to let you know about a podcast you might enjoy (a podcast, of course, is only an Internet radio program, in case you don’t know the term yet …). Just close this window, go to our homepage at www.thehumanityproject.com and then click on The Humanity Podcast. At the top of the podcast page, you’ll see a link to the latest show, called “Service To Others: A Personal Story.” Click on that link to open it. The 15-minute program you’ll hear is, indeed, personal. At least to me. It’s my own story.

You’ll listen to my honest, very personal explanation about how and why The Humanity Project is focusing our mission on one idea: We want to help people live more happily through service to others. It’s that simple. We were always about helping you become healthier, more well-adjusted – more fully the person you really are. Now, though, our approach to this effort has changed. That’s because we have come to believe the best way to help you help yourself is by teaching you to focus on the needs of others. Recent scientific research into happiness backs up this conclusion: People feel happier when they sincerely work to make other people happy. The new edition of The Humanity Podcast talks about the 30-year process I went through to reach this belief in my own life. Maybe hearing a bit about my struggles will help you somehow in your own search for a happier way of life.

Far East Reflections

I’m just back from two weeks in the Far East. It was an amazing travel-writing trip for me, my first to Asia. (By the way, I want to again thank Zach Ziskin of Funny Monkey Enterprises for his help in updating the website daily during my absence.) I began in Thailand, moved on to Vietnam, then to Brunei (not exactly a common stop for travelers), Malaysia and finally Singapore. In each place, the cities and countryside were vibrant, the food was excellent, the people were beautiful and very friendly.

I’m mentioning my trip for a reason. This journey gave me a great chance to reflect on some new things. Or maybe it was really some old things viewed from fresh perspectives. Here was one of those perspectives: I crawled more than 120 feet while some 15 feet underground through a tiny tunnel built during the Vietnam War for Viet Cong soldiers. It was a hole barely 2 ½ feet tall and maybe 1 ½ feet wide, just enough for me to squeeze through. During the war, 20,000 people lived in this 120-mile complex of tunnels and miniscule underground rooms. Literally, lived there. I’m planning an upcoming podcast on the experience, but I can tell you that this greatly strengthened my ideas about the incredible emotional toughness and adapability of human beings.

I also learned once again that people are basically the same everywhere. We all struggle with self-doubts and we look for ways to feel good about ourselves, especially to feel somehow important in this world. I’ve seen those same traits in folks at 11,000 feet in the Andes of South America and I saw them again in Asia, just as I notice them all around me each day in the United States. It’s a universal human issue. In Asia, though, individuality seems less prized than community – the idea of serving a greater cause. I think that’s why the Viet Cong could live in those hellish tunnels for so many years. They were working for something they felt was bigger than themselves, more important than their own personal needs. And I think this helped to crystallize my thinking about the individual’s place in society. The Humanity Project wants to build a better society by helping individuals become better. Maybe the best way to do that is by helping individuals serve something bigger than themselves – service to society, to humanity itself. We’ll have a lot more to say about this in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned.