The Best Advice I Ever Got (25 page)

Lisa Ling

Oprah Winfrey Show
Correspondent and Executive Producer and Host of
Our America with Lisa Ling

Give of Yourself

As a journalist, I have seen things that have scarred me. I have interacted with people who have haunted me. I have heard things that have pained me. As a result, I have long struggled with the notion of faith. I have said more times than I can count, “If there is a God, how can he allow this to happen? How can he let so many people suffer?”

Several years ago, I married a man of strong faith. One day he sent an email to me that said this: “On a street corner I saw a cold, shivering girl in a thin dress, with no hope of a decent meal. I got angry and said to God, ‘Why did you permit this? Why don’t you do something about it?’ God replied, ‘I certainly did something about it. I made you.’ ”

Whenever I start to blame God for what I encounter in the world, I stop and remind myself that maybe it is I who should be doing more. We get so hung up on the notion of success that we can easily forget about being of service to others. I have actually found that giving of oneself is far more fulfilling than gifting oneself.

Maggie Doyne

Founder of Kopila Valley Children’s Home and blinknow.org

Everything You Need Is Everything You Have

After my senior year of high school, as my friends were heading off to college, my parents dropped me off at Newark Airport, where I boarded a plane and set off to travel the world. It was just me and my backpack on my first solo trip away from home. Four countries and twenty thousand miles later, I was trekking through the Himalayas in war-torn Nepal, where I began to meet hundreds of orphaned children. I fell in love with their bright eyes and beautiful smiles but was shocked to see them barely surviving without the most basic things that I had grown up with: a safe home, food, clothing, and the chance to go to school. The violent ten-year civil war, widespread disease, and extreme poverty have left an estimated forty-five thousand orphan children in Nepal to fend for themselves.

I distinctly remember the moment I decided to stop feeling guilty and helpless and do something. On a ramshackle bus ride through the most poverty-stricken villages in the region, I thought of the children who I knew would be trafficked, exploited, and sold as slaves. From a tiny roadside phone booth, I called my parents and asked them to wire over my life savings—five thousand dollars in babysitting money. After months of research and negotiations and a lot of hard work, I bought my first piece of land on the outskirts of a beautiful village in the midwestern border region of Nepal.

One year later, I officially opened the front door of Kopila Valley Children’s Home, which was built brick by brick, by me and the local community in Nepal. There are now thirty-five children living in our cozy, cheerful home. In the spring of 2010, another of my dreams came true: Kopila Valley Primary School. Our new school (built out of locally harvested bamboo) is gorgeous and bustling with more than two hundred and thirty children from Surkhet and surrounding regions. Many of our students are the first in their families to attend school.

The children are thriving. I truly believe that if all the children in the world are provided with their most basic needs and rights—a safe home, medical care, an education, and love—they will grow up to be leaders and end the cycles of poverty and violence in our world.

Anything is possible. I know that no matter how many times people tell you that, you really can’t hear it enough. Maybe it’s a cliché because it’s
true
. You can do anything you put your mind to, and you just have to do it.

I’ve learned this lesson again and again, mostly from watching my children. They have overcome some of the most unbelievable suffering—sorrow beyond measure. I watch them—their bright eyes, their incredible resilience, the way they get up and keep on going, the way they know, somewhere deep in their hearts, that the only way is to keep moving onward and to keep loving. If love is still possible after you’ve lost everything you’ve ever known, then anything is possible. That’s what I think.

Anything is possible.

I’m telling you there’s a lot to do. I’m telling you the world needs you. Whatever your calling is. Whatever you dream of. The world needs all of us. I’m telling you. Everything you need, you’ve got right now. So go.

One step at a time.

The world will cheer you on. Trust me.

Mitch Albom

Bestselling Author, Journalist, and Philanthropist

Giving Is Living

Morrie was dying. We came to sit by his side. Family. Friends. Former students.

Not everyone was so comfortable. Death can make you squeamish. Many visitors, I noticed, came with a plan. They were going to tell happy stories, share jokes, show photos. They’d go into Morrie’s office, where he lay motionless in a long chair. The door would shut. And an hour later they’d emerge in tears.

But they were crying about
 … their
job,
their
divorce,
their
issues.

“I went in to cheer him up,” they’d say, sniffing, “but he started asking me about my life and my problems and, next thing I know, I was bawling.”

I watched this happen so many times that finally I went in to Morrie and said, “I don’t get it. You’re the one dying from ALS, this awful, debilitating disease. If ever anyone has finally earned the right to say, ‘Let’s not talk about your problems, let’s talk about my problems,’ it’s you!”

He looked at me sadly.

“Mitch,” he whispered, “why would I ever
take
like that? Taking just reminds me that I’m dying.” He smiled. “Giving makes me feel like I’m living.”

Giving makes me feel like I’m living.

It is a profound little sentence.

And some of the best advice I’ve ever received.

Our culture, of course, tells us the opposite. The more you take, the more alive you are. The more money in your bank account, cars in your garage, or shoes in your closet, the more you are winning the game.

But think about your final moments in this world, like the ones Morrie endured. At that most crucial time, when you are clinging to life, all that you own will be of no use to you. What purpose will a sports car serve at that point? Jewelry? A big-screen TV? Chances are that stuff won’t even be in the room.

All that will matter, at that precious point, is that the people who love you are by your side, right? Well, the people who love you will likely be the ones to whom you gave time. The ones to whom you gave warmth and affection. When you most want to feel alive, the things you gave will be the things that return.

Try it sometime—maybe the next time you’re depressed or blue. Maybe the next time taking something or achieving status doesn’t make you as happy as you thought it would. Instead, go someplace where you’re needed—talk to a struggling friend, cheer up someone in a hospital, scoop potatoes at a soup kitchen. You’ll be surprised how energized you feel afterward, how your blues may quietly disappear when you see someone who has it worse.

And if, on your way out, you get that small tingle in your stomach when those people whisper “Thank you”?

That’s being alive.

And it comes from giving, not taking.

Morrie, once again, had it right.

Michael J. Fox

Actor, Bestselling Author, and Activist

Be Grateful

As much as we can, it’s helpful to be in a place of gratitude. None of us is entitled to anything. We get what we get not because we want it or we deserve it or because it’s unfair if we don’t get it but because we earn it, we respect it, and only if we share it do we keep it.

Scott Case

Technologist, Inventor, Co-Founder of Priceline.com, Vice Chairman of Malaria No More, and CEO of Startup America Partnership

You’re Sitting on a Winning Lottery Ticket—Invest It Wisely

When I graduated from college in 1992, I felt as if I had hit the lottery. Not the actual lottery—I’m not talking about Ferraris or private yachts—but the life lottery. First, I live in America, a country where you can reach any goal you set for yourself, as long as you’ve got the guts to work for it. Second, I had received an education. Literacy alone opens doors that people all over the world can only dream of. Third, I knew that I had a support system behind me; the love of my family had gotten me this far, and now it was time to put my prize to use.

After college, I parlayed my lottery ticket into a career at the beginning of the Internet era. I was lucky enough to belong to a team that worked to design, build, and grow an innovative business called Priceline.com. I then went on to grow a Web service called Network for Good, which has helped sixty thousand nonprofits raise more than $400 million online.

Most recently, I’ve directed my energy toward doing whatever I can to stop mosquitoes from needlessly killing hundreds of thousands of kids every year. I lead a team at Malaria No More, which is dedicated to one thing: ending malaria deaths in Africa by 2015.

The chance to work every day to have a positive effect on other people is the chance of a lifetime. I believe that everyone has the same opportunity—and it comes with a daunting responsibility. It won’t always be easy. It won’t always be fun. But it will be rewarding.

So don’t take your own winning lottery ticket for granted. Invest the skills, knowledge, and talents that come with it to make the world a better place through science or technology, academia or advocacy, or community or public service.

Your winning lottery ticket doesn’t get more valuable by sitting on it—invest it in a better future for all of us.