Giving Way - Page 6 of 10 - Practical Inspiration for Nonprofit Leaders

In Praise of the Bicycle Workday

Posted on September 15, 2017November 10, 2017 by Todd J. Sukol

By Todd J. Sukol I recently found this piece of writing in my journal from 2010. At the time I had just started Do More Mission and was experimenting with working all over DC metro from my bicycle. Laptop and cell phone in tow, I worked my way around various parts of the city, Rock…

It Takes Good to Be Great

Posted on September 1, 2017November 10, 2017 by Todd J. Sukol

By Todd J. Sukol Ironically, in this week when my wife, Amy Sukol, led a seminar entitled “From Great to Awesome” at the 2017 Chicago Nonprofit Conference*, I was learning a complementary lesson, also loosely based on Jim Collins’ Good to Great, but in the opposite direction. You see, this week wasn’t what I would…

Embrace the Uncomfortable. Move Forward in the Face of Mistakes. Allow Space.

Posted on August 18, 2017November 10, 2017 by Todd J. Sukol

By Todd J. Sukol Facing a big birthday a couple of years ago, I resolved to live my personal and professional life with a new level of courage, integrity and productivity. As part of my quest I adopted a three-part philosophy, which I openly confess remains somewhat aspirational: “Embrace the uncomfortable, move forward in the…

“Innovation”: What to make of a word that just won’t go away

Posted on August 11, 2017November 10, 2017 by Todd J. Sukol

By Todd J. Sukol In the nearly 10 years since bestselling author and popular speaker Scott Berkun famously implored the world to “stop saying innovation,” we in the Jewish philanthropic and nonprofit world show no sign of heeding his sage advice. Scott, whose credits include the bestseller The Myths of Innovation, makes a nearly irrefutable…

A (very old) New Way of Asking “Why?”

May 16, 2021

In the wake of profoundly unsettling events these past few weeks, I am reminded of a profound lesson to be found in a deceptively simple question humanity cannot seem to stop asking: “Why?”

A charmingly genuine, quirky, insightful podcaster/broadcaster/commentator retold the so-called Parable of the Chinese Farmer sent to him by a listener to his VORW International podcast (episode from May 8, 2021). I paraphrase John’s paraphrase of a paraphrase below:

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer who lost a horse — ran away

All the neighbors came around that evening and said “that’s too bad.”

And he said “Maybe.”

The next day the horse came back and brought seven wild horses with it.

And all the neighbors came around and said “why that’s great isn’t it.”

And he said “Maybe.”

The next day his son was attempting to tame one of these horses and was riding it, and was thrown and broke his leg.

And all the neighbors came around in the evening and said “Well that’s too bad isn’t it.”

The farmer said “Maybe.”

The next day the conscription officers came around looking for people for the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg.

And all the neighbors came around jthat evening and said “ isn’t that wonderful.”

And he said “Maybe.”

The most apparent lesson of the parable is that we should be slow to judge the events that befall us. What seems good may be bad and what seems bad may be good. Indeed, so many times this turns out to be true. Open-mindedness, I agree, is a good stance from which to start.

But let’s go a little deeper. Openness is but the starting point of what I think is being pointed to here.

Creating Meaning

Usually when we ask the question, “Why?” we are looking backward, searching for causation. While there is value in understanding how we ended up where we are, most of the time there are too many variables to definitively decipher repeatable recipes for our current triumphs or predicaments.

But what if we are looking in the wrong direction? The Hebrew word for “why?,” which is “lama?” (sounds like “llama”), points us to a forward looking version of the question “Why?” The Hebrew word “lama?” can be thought of as a contraction of the prefix “l’…,” which means “to” or “toward,” and the interrogative word “what?.” In other words, the Hebrew language is suggesting that when we ask the pervasive, very human question “Why?” we ought to be directing our thinking toward the future, not the past. Don’t ask “From where did this come?” Ask instead “To where do I take this?”

Taken together, perhaps, the Parable of the Chinese Farmer and the ancient wisdom of the Hebrew language are directing us to respond to the vicissitudes of live by devoting ourselves to creating meaning through creative purpose. Purpose, or meaning, is not something we merely attempt to decipher. It is something we are responsible to create, perhaps in partnership with the Divine. Whether we confront tragedy, anxiety or triumph, we are challenged to direct our pain, our pride, our talents and our struggles toward making the world something closer to what we believe it can and should be. What would happen if our way of celebrating success, mourning loss and managing uncertainty all consisted of a new kind of “Why?” What if we responded to life’s every conquest, concussion and curve-ball by asking “What am I supposed to do with this? How do I make it matter?”

Photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash

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