The Good Things in Life
As I was on my flight to Seattle, I had the great fortune of finally able to sit down and read one of my favorite periodicals: Good. In this amazing magazine, I read the profile of Tom Siebel. The name is likely lost to a great number of people, which is entirely expected. Siebel is the center figure of the Meth Project – to which he’s donated millions of his own to produce.
It was great to read about this man, and I was taken aback by the short write-up that they did on him. What strikes me as most amazing about him is his drive to solve a problem at its root. Methamphetamine has been an issue in Montana for some time, and detrimentally so. Where the legislators in Montana wished to make the prison system larger, Siebel had the insight to suggest something different. He made some of the most shocking advertisements I have ever seen. His work produced the wanted result and today Meth use in Montana is down – a lot. It makes me pretty hopeful to encounter people like this, even by proxy of a magazine.
It reminds me a little bit of the Foundation for a Better Life. I remember seeing a PSA produced by this group, and thinking that it was a cover for some religious entity or company or something, I decided to investigate. I came to found that it’s a foundation that does not accept any sort of donations from anywhere, it already has donors, and those donors remain completely anonymous. You know the ads, “Eats Flies, Dates a Pig, Hollywood Star…” and you see a picture of Kermit the Frog? I’ve admired that campaign from that day forward. Whenever I see a billboard, or posters, or anything, I get psyched to see that people really care about one another.
I had a friend recently say to me, “Life seems to produce so many people that have interest in no one other than themselves.” All too often that seems to be the case, but I think when it comes down to it, most people are really interested in serving one another in a big way, in great ways. Those voices, however, seem to be drowned out, until a few good ones come up to the surface and surprise all of us. Here’s to the world changers, even putting a little smile on a few people’s faces here and there.