Making a difference

“I challenge you to think about what it means to be significant. Success is about your own achievements. Significance is about what you do for others.” Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of Interfaith Youth Core, Chicago.

Patel's Youth Core helps young people make a significant difference in their communities and in the world.

This was a new concept for me. Success is about self; significance is about others.

The world is full of heroes. The real heroes are usually not those in positions of power -- not the presidents, the kings, or the generals. The real heroes are those who have forgotten self in serving others.

Think Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Theresa. The disciple Judas was successful, but the man he betrayed has been significant through centuries.

Twentieth century American reformer Mary Baker Eddy knew how to make a genuine difference. “Forget self," she wrote, "in laboring for mankind.”

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Is it easier to be successful or significant?

Who do you know, or know of, who has made a difference in the lives of others?

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Brief example of how the Youth Core makes a difference.

A tale of two vendors

Innocent looking panel box -

but something needed fixing.

Condo living is great. Somebody else is responsible for shoveling the snow, cutting the grass, raking the leaves.

However, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes. What's behind the scenes is called the condo board, elected volunteers who connect with the management company and the vendors and make sure things continue running smoothly.

In one of our buildings, the alarm panel that automatically alerts the fire department in case of emergency, malfunctioned. The state requires that panel to function properly. So the fire sprinkler inspection people came out and checked their equipment and said everything was working fine. Therefore, it must be the telephone people's responsibility.

The phone company technicians came out and tested their equipment. Everything worked properly, they said.

It was back to the fire sprinkler inspection vendor. They came out again and confirmed their equipment was fine. Back to the phone company, and so on. Would you believe, for months?

Solutions are not supposed to be this complicated.

So, what exactly wasn’t working, and who could find it and fix it?

Since I was the contact for these vendors, I finally realized (better late than never!) I’d better pray about this puzzle. My prayer went something like this: Dear Father, You are Mind itself, infinite intelligence, and it is your loving nature to meet every human need. It’s a human need to comply with state regulations, and I don’t know what to do next. But you do. So I am ready to hear what it is you want me to do.

It came to me to call the sprinkler inspectors again, and talk to Brad, the service manager. Brad wanted very much to solve this lingering problem. So he sent a technician who came armed with 30 years' experience. He studied the alarm panel parts carefully and then asked an out-of the-box question for a sprinkler inspector. “Where is your phone equipment?”

In that room he opened a box to find a little rectangular green module that connects the alarm panel to the phone lines. He ran some tests on that little rascal, discovered a bad wire, replaced it and, quick as a bunny, the alarm panel was back on-line. We were connected and in compliance – for the first time in months.

Did prayer make a difference? I believe it did. Because phone calls without prayer had, for months, solved nothing. Phone calls after honest prayer resulted in a quick and permanent solution. As I see it, the successful technician was inspired to push the boundaries of where to find what needed fixing.

Hurray! Or as a dear friend often cheers, sincerely, "Yea God!"