The Most Cliche Question Ever

What is Your Contribution to the Society?

You cannot draw water from an empty well. - Unknown

If you are an active X user, I'm sure you'd have seen this line of questioning more times than often that it's almost become a cliche, if you ask some people.

These days, when I see the question, I unconsciously ignore it and look at the almost certainly trending, ridiculous quoted answer. And on some days, I just continue swiping without bothering to read. See? Cliche.

However, I woke up one morning a few days ago and the first thing that popped into my head was the question; what is your contribution to the society?

I had to pause and be sure it wasn't my excessive use of the social platform that has made it a meditative material, and to be fair, maybe it is. But we'll talk about my bad habits later in the future.

Today, just as I asked the question of myself and it was not easy answering it, I have decided to ask you the same.

What is your contribution to the society?

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Many people default to making others happy and serving others and giving their lives for others.

Many people default to being nice and kind to people, considering other people when it is the hardest, making sure everyone is comfortable, being good friends and making sure they are not the ones making trouble and calling people out.

Many people see their contribution to the society as their pleasantness in the face of everything that's thrown at them, taking the high road when they have been wronged, and just living life without offending anybody.

If you know me well, and you are also following the book community I belong to (I talk about it a lot in my newsletters and podcasts that you must be tired by now), you would already know that I have just been inducted as a Professional Troublemaker, and if you have read the book before, you'll sense a marker of it in this newsletter.

One of the highlights from that book was how always deliberately trying not offending anybody serves nobody. Not you, not the person you're trying not to offend, and not even the society as a whole.

If your contribution to the society today is making everyone happy and shape-shifting into a clown everytime it is needed, then you're contributing wrongly because I promise, that's not what society needs.

Doing this means that you would compromise on your values just to keep the smile on people's faces. You will tip toe when you know what is needed for the greater good of the larger many is for you to sprint.

If making everyone happy and leaving a pleasant feeling everywhere you go; whether to the camp of the white or to the camp of the black; whether to the camp of the baddies or to the camp of the babies, best believe you are not contributing anything to the society, because what you're doing is Plus One Minus One. You have zero grounds you're standing on.

If your contribution is being nice all the time and swallowing up all the sh*t that people throw at you so other people don't think you aren't a nice person, well, it might be pleasant initially, but imagine what the compound effect of that will be. You will be covered in sh*t and have to deal with the consequences all by yourself.

Luvvie Ajayi Jones said something profound, that being nice isn't entirely a compliment. Being nice and kind are two completely different things. Being kind is being considerate of other people when it matters, while being nice is being considerate of other people even at the detriment of yourself, your values and your beliefs.

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It is good to serve, don't get me wrong. And in fact, the purpose of man is to be of service to other people. If your life isn't serving, then it has no meaning.

However, to be a person who can serve, to be a person who can be of service and contribute to the society, you first have to give to yourself. You cannot serve properly if you haven't made yourself a recipient of that service in the first place. You cannot be kind to people the way that matters if you are not kind to yourself. You lose the ability to comfort people accurately and for a long time when you are uncomfortable.

The purpose of your life is to serve. There is a reason why ‘your life’ comes before ‘service’ in that statement. You first have to live to be able to serve.

Integrity, kindness, love, service, comfort, respect, worth, affection, growth, all of these values are what you have to give to yourself first in order to give them properly to other people. You cannot draw water from an empty well.

What then should be your first and foremost contribution to the society? It is this: to be a complete and functional human being.

Sit down and think about all the ways people want to be treated, and learn to treat yourself that way first, learn to state boldly that you be treated that way first. Only then are you healthy enough to treat people that way. Counterintuitive, I know.

Nobody can love unless he has truly and wholly felt love in himself. Nobody can love you unless he understand what it means to be loved of himself first.

Your contribution to the community, then, is not anything else but to be you. Your true, entire, functional self. Nobody else.

This is where we need to get to in order to start being functional and contributing members of the society by default.

To Your Growth,

Your Coach,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired. ✨