College Essay Making a Difference Text

Jonathan Friesen - Writing Coach

You prefer to be of use and to act in service of that friend or concept, rather than against it. These two points together mean that some actions serve you more than others: the more aligned your cares and actions, the bigger the difference you make. You dont need to candy stripe or be nice to your strange uncle or his weird kids: to make a difference you simply need to question the value of what youre doing and do something about your answers. As soon as someone starts talking about changing the world or radically reinventing something odds are good hes talking from his ego, not his heart.

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Unless hes working on bringing safety to the scared, health to the sick, or opportunity to the poor, the reinvention serves a want or an ego , not a need. Look back at the thing you care about: your friend, your family, your favorite pair of underwear, the idea of free thought, whatever it is. What impact did they have on the things you hold most high? was the reason you did or did not make a difference soley dependent on a technology? progress may be infinite, sure, but in our time and perhaps class, and country progress isnt as dependent on technology as it used to be: now its the use of technology that matters more than technology itself.

The glaring need for progress is in what we send over the pipes, and not the pipes themselves. Since the telegraph weve been sending most bits to most places: where were behind is in the quality of what we send each other. For example, heres some difference making problems whose solutions are not dependent on recent technological advances: you dont know your neighbors. Youve fallen and cant get up oh wait everyone i know who has designed something millions of people use, a radically successful product or website, has trouble connecting that accomplishment with difference making.

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Instead, they talk about other things: helping friends, sharing advice with someone who needed it, standing up for something they thought was right despite the consequences, helping a friend, or better yet a stranger, laugh at a bad day. Its these seemingly small things that have little to do with a particular technology, or science, or business that stand out as most memorable. We can all remember times when someone did something for us that mattered and its always these human things. So why do we forget that it is these things, not tools and toys, that hold the essence of making a difference? on my last day at microsoft i was invited thanks to surya vanka to do a last lecture. It was a wonderful event and i talked about important things to a friendly crowd. Annoy me with praise! is there a more absurd phrase in the english language? it made me think how many times id seen or read things that mattered to me and how rare it was id offered any praise in return. Books that i loved or read dozens of times , lectures i enjoyed, good advice id recieved, that id never thanked the person for.

Dozens of people who who said honest things that changed me for the better, or who stuck up for me when others didnt, who never learned the value their words had. I recognized an infinity of actions that made a difference to me that i had not acknowledged in any way and i was poisoned by it. He walked straight up, looked me in the eye, and offered his thanks, something, i realized, i didnt know how to do. These little forgotten things, a short e mail, a comment on a website, a handshake and a thank you, were not things id ever learned. And i realized, in my twisted little attic of a mind, in a hidden dark corner covered in dust, was the belief that offering praise in those contexts was a lessening of my self opinion.

That to compliment was to admit a kind of failure in myself: an association between those kinds of praise and sycophancy. I know now what a fool ive been, for it takes a better man to acknowledge goodness in others than it does to merely be good oneself. Anyone can criticize or accept praise, but initiating a positive exchange is a hallmark of a difference maker. I used to think it was a sign of some kind of capitalistic progress to be able to buy food and gifts instead of making them myself, but im not sure anymore.

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