Thoughts

Why twenty-somethings need to stop trying to make a big difference

To do something big, you first need the courage and perseverance to be faithful in the small

By Paul Angone
ChristianWeek Columnist |

Our lives are going to be big. We’ve always known it. But what happens when your dreams of making a big difference or making a lot of money fail to happen?

For most of my twenties, my biggest dream was to write a book that would encourage, inspire, and speak to my generation. The only problem was I couldn’t get a publisher to take a chance on it. Well…that, and I still didn’t exactly know how to finish the book itself.

So immersed in the ambiguity of adulthood as I struggled to become “all groan up,” all the world’s problems I was so sure I was going to conquer quickly took a backseat to my own.

Things like making rent became more important than making a difference. I became bitter and frustrated at God’s clear lack of faithfulness and my clear lack of ability. Every day I walked into my local coffee shop to write out the answers to life while I felt like my own life was going nowhere.

Introducing shopping cart man

Yet, I wasn’t the only one who would show up to that coffee shop every day. There was Shopping Cart Man, a 60-year-old guy who pushed around a grocery cart and made the same exact rounds in the same exact clothes every day to check newspaper stands for quarters.

One fateful day as I watched Shopping Cart Man sit down in the sweltering August Los Angeles air, I dipped my hand into my coffee fund and pulled out my last 10 dollars.

As I thought about the five cups of coffee that this last piece of paper could buy me, I couldn’t shake this insane thought:

You need to give Shopping Cart Man that 10 dollar bill.

But I’m broke too, I reasoned with myself. In a month that might be me riding in that man’s shopping cart. Or him in mine. Or switching off, as I’m sure we would work out some sort of pushing rotation.

I don’t care. You need to give Shopping Cart Man that 10 dollar bill.

No . . . no . . . you don’t understand. This is my last 10 . . .

You need to give Shopping Cart Man that 10 dollar bill.

Fine! I yelled, coffee leaping over the edges of my mug. I’ll give my last 10 to Shopping Cart Man. But promise that if I do, you’ll help me write a couple really insightful pages.

I don’t know if you can bribe your conscience, but since it had me giving away my last 10 dollar I thought it was worth a shot.

I wanted to be a completely joyful, no-strings-attached giver. But all the caffeine had me on edge. That, and I’m selfish.

My valiant reluctance

I walked outside into the hot, smug, L.A. air that feels like you’re trying to cuddle with an exhaust pipe, and in an act of valiant reluctance, gave Shopping Cart Man my last 10 dollar bill. He stood up to leave while I scurried back to my comfortable coffee shop seat.

Ten minutes later, he was back. He sat outside the tinted window right next to me. We were like old friends having a drink together with just a thin piece of glass to separate us. Me in air conditioning. Him in the hundred-degree heat. A thin piece of glass that could have been the Berlin Wall for the separation it created.

As I watched Shopping Cart Man, I saw what my donation had bought him — a 64-ounce Pepsi, a burger, a big bag of Fiery Fritos, and two lottery tickets.

He scratched the tickets first, which greatly excited me, my writing now a distant second. I envisioned him jumping up and dancing as the new million-dollar winner. I would run outside and grab his hands, and we would jump up and down in a circle. Laughing like brothers opening up our Christmas presents. We’d be the lead story on the 11 o’clock news, both of us standing by his shopping cart, arms around each other’s shoulders like father and son.

The homeless man who finally caught his break. The young guy who valiantly (I’d leave out “reluctantly”) made it happen. We were going to be local legends.

But he quickly threw the tickets on the sidewalk, crushing our 11 o’clock debut.

He pounded down the burger and fries, and then just sat back with his bag of chips. Slowly, meticulously, he took one bite after another, and then threw the next chip to the pigeons around him.

Then something happened. It wasn’t dramatic. If anyone else had been watching, they probably wouldn’t have noticed or cared. But I’d been watching Shopping Cart Man almost every day for a month as he walked up and down the sidewalks. That day, as he sat there feeding the pigeons, he did something I’d never seen him do before.

He smiled.

He was feeding the pigeons around him. He was full and he was happy.

His smile became my answer. A smile from feeding those who needed it more than him. It was a painting of profound simplicity. There was nothing more satisfying than seeing him content.

If you want to do something big

Our generation has more options, more education, and more “potential” at our disposal than any other in the history of humankind. We’re told from day one that the world is ours. Instead of singing the ABCs in kindergarten, we were chanting, “I can do anything, I can be anything.”

But what happens when we feel like we’re doing nothing? What happens when all the choices and options become the never-ending cereal aisle that we can never leave? What happens to us then?

When it seemed like I was doing nothing, I was stuck, disappointed, and hurt by my lack of talent and God’s lack of faithfulness. Instead of moving forward, I did what I know how to do best. Complain. Moan. Punch my pillow and pout.

But why? As I sat there watching Shopping Cart Man smile, my complaining didn’t make sense. With every Fiery Frito he tossed to the birds encircling him, I felt something inside me begging to switch.

Enough! Enough complaining and moaning. Enough adding to the world’s suffering instead of trying to ease it. If you’re overwhelmed with asking what you want to do with your life, remember that it’s a gift to even have the time and space to ask.

Drowning in options is a terrible way to die.

What if I walked around actually believing I have a specific purpose for my life — to bring life to the world around me in the every day?

I’m not just talking about joining in the latest provocative social justice issue. Not that I shouldn’t. Or that I shouldn’t still desire to impact the world. But it must start simpler and more everyday than that. It’s not just about social justice. It’s about being just in my daily social sphere.

You don’t join a cause. You live in one. Every day.

It doesn’t have to be monumental to be worthy of our effort.

It doesn’t have to be labeled “big” to be worth your time.

It doesn’t have to be social-media-worthy for you to take a picture.

Every single day you have the chance to forget about your “problems” and help the world with theirs.

You can’t help humanity if you’ve forgotten how to be human.

God’s faithfulness in the small things

Right now, right where you sit, if you feel like your big dreams and hopes aren’t coming true, maybe God isn’t ignoring you. Maybe God is saving your life.

We cry out for a big calling, yet like a newborn colt trying to carry a huge load, the big would’ve crushed us.

We have to find meaning in the mundane before we can bring meaning anywhere beyond. Click To Tweet

Our generation wants to make a big impact, and that’s an amazing vision to have. Yet, why do we think we’re going to bypass the years of training, refining, loneliness, brokenness, and failure it’s going to take to make it happen? It took me 10 years of re-writing, failing, and starting over before my new book All Groan Up: Searching For Self, Faith, and a Freaking Job! became the real thing it needed to become.

We have to find meaning in the mundane before we can bring meaning anywhere beyond. Maybe our big dreams need to die so that our true purpose can be born.

So yes, we have a big God who can do big things through us all.

But if you want to do something big, will you first have the courage and perseverance to be faithful in the small?

_________

This article first appeared in onfaith.

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