Filling the Vacuum for Social Good: Country Before the Self

As I had informed you earlier, it has been 3 tough years since I came to America in April’22. One of the major hallmarks of the entire tenure is I had simply kept the country before the self. I always worked towards the larger picture, interests and never confined to my limited self. I can give many examples of this trend. Let me begin by telling some of the worst cases which I followed to serve the nation at large. Everyone gets married to raise a family but I seemed to have married to serve the world better. I always used my partner for my ‘work’ routines and to keep myself extremely busy to serve the external elements. So much so that my spouse, after living with me for little over 2 years in U.S., going back to India seemed to be the safest option for her. Living with me for a lengthy time period with these daily routines and environment seemed to be dangerous. And sending her back to India is an act of keeping her safe. Not just my spouse, my house mates with whom I share my accommodation live with me to serve the outer world. After living for 1.8 years, I shifted my home as I felt it would ‘risk’ my owner and housemates. I am living in the present setup for the last 1.5 years and there are times when I felt the same risk. I work in a project to serve the larger world where my colleagues become partners in the process. After working for 2 years in a project, I felt moving on is the safest option. At its height, my last project of last five months was extremely difficult in navigating this dangerous landscape where my work severity has increased a lot. There are many occasions when I need to be vigilant of my team members and see them in a safe zone. Living with me in my room, in my house and in my work doesn’t need to get so risky and I operate with one and all not for me, not for them but for the greater good. You must have never seen or heard something like this ever where the impact and the service the person creates is so much so that everyone who comes in close contact with him is in a spot of bother. I put my spouse, roommates, colleagues and everyone who are all living with me on a tightrope while working for the greater good. In short, we are all living for the country in true sense putting the nation, state, city and society far above the self. 

How many of us lives truly for others and not goes by a general ‘family first’ stand. Hardly any and it is less than 1%. As everyone worries just about the life within the four walls of the house, we need to think about the open road adjacent to it. I don’t say everyone should be like me putting everyone else at risk but we need to hit the middle ground. For instance, why should President Trump need to serve this country above the self for the last 10 years at the age of 74. He is a news maker every single day for the last ten years. Don’t we need to get ashamed after looking at this for a decade and expect more visuals and service. Don’t we need to find a middle ground, come out and work for the nation. The reason is there is tremendous work required on this front. When everyone thinks about the petty self, there will be a pile of work waiting to be done for the greater and global good. For instance, I don’t need to write this blog every week for my sake on different topics. It is for the sake of greater good and the deep penchant within me to serve others. Writing is not for me, but writing is for writing's sake and for the sake of everyone. I can comfortably write at my own convenience but the prolific continuity and consistency on good topics is my service to humanity. Likewise, my daily routines aren’t just for me where going out for one day in a week will be sufficient to meet my own needs. But the extreme work routines are not for namesake but to create value and standards in the community by serving others. The religious, regular, everyday routines are precisely for greater good and there is more harm to the self by being extremely regular.  

Great men live for the country, ordinary men live for the self, and small men live for neither. Anyone who leads the country, state, city etc. with wholehearted dedication and service fall in the first category. Our focus should be to become great in these times as we are fortunate that great leadership is overlooking us. In many modern societies like America, there's a growing emphasis on personal success, wealth, and happiness. This mindset can overshadow the importance of working towards collective goals, like the betterment of the nation or community. Which is why the nation as a whole may move in wrong direction even when there are lot of successful individuals. Serving the country often requires sacrifices that don't yield immediate, tangible benefits. In many cultures, people prioritize family and personal stability over the larger community or nation. This isn’t inherently bad, but it can sometimes create a gap when collective actions are needed. 

American culture strongly celebrates individual achievement and personal success. While this drives innovation and entrepreneurship, it can sometimes overshadow collective needs and community-oriented work. The extreme capitalism and the market economy naturally rewards activities that generate profit rather than those that create public goods. The largest economy of the world which thrives on individual brilliance and personal creativity has the largest vacuum for public and global good. Our endeavor should be to fill it with the great men working in this domain. The huge, gigantic unmet needs requiring collective action are substantial across multiple domains after safely evading it for a long time. These huge areas require modern day Abraham Lincoln or a modern-day Gandhi equivalent to direct the nation along a great path. For instance, collective actions are required in infrastructure revitalization, climate change resilience and environmental protection, health care accessibility and public health, education and work force development, excessive dependence on science and technology and other areas. These have become problems of century where humanity of the world looks for solutions and guidance. Unless individual greed subsides for collective good, there can be little hope for ordinary people from different parts of world to live for a great next century. Simply, we need to fill the huge vacuum left behind to serve the humanity. Let us hit the middle ground running and emulate the examples in front of our eyes which are working for decades. 

As we have seen, good heart and philanthropy alone as well do not serve the purpose other than concrete work. Philanthropy and the civic work that addresses national needs are related but distinct approaches to creating public benefit. While philanthropy plays an important role in addressing social challenges, it differs fundamentally from the broader work of national service and civic engagement in several keyways. Even the largest philanthropic organizations command resources that are modest compared to the scale of public needs. For example, the entire annual charitable giving in the U.S. (about $500 billion) is less than the federal government spends on Medicare alone. The vacuum in work benefiting the country on mainstream healthcare front requires mobilization of resources and participation far beyond what philanthropy can provide from sidelines. While there is nothing less to talk about this great philanthropic service, it still doesn’t entirely fit the gap. 

In line with this, we need to work on the below for creating greater individuals and greater societies while working in the huge vacuum. 1. Creating financial, social, and professional incentives that reward contribution to collective welfare rather than just individual or shareholder gain. 2. Developing new types of organizations and partnerships specifically designed to address collective needs that fall between traditional public and private sectors. 3. Fostering cultural values that celebrate service and contribution alongside individual achievement and wealth creation. 4. Helping people understand the enormous benefits of collective action and the costs of leaving critical needs unaddressed. 5. Cultivating leaders who can effectively communicate compelling visions of collective progress and mobilize diverse stakeholders toward common goals. 

Coming from India, there are leaders who have left everything and everyone for national service while there are some who used everyone and every means to render the service in greater proportions. Prime Minister Modi is the prime example of the former case who is unmarried without anyone in personal life and dedicated completely for national service. Former President of India Abdul Kalam is another case in the study. The present chief ministers of the states like Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal also fall in this category where they have discarded everything related to petty self and completely dedicated for the nation. These examples are hard to come by in the west. I can write about this breed which is abundant in India in another post but know that these kinds of people exist and we need to emulate at least 1% of their sacrifice for national causes. For those who live for the society live, others merely exist. This is how you work for nation, and this is how we need to fill the huge gap for social good.