I Want You!...To Grow Up

"When will you grow up!?"

Most of us probably heard something like this repeatedly pouring out of the mouths of our parents and guardians. In fact, it seemed like the closer we were to the magical world of adulthood the more frequent similar phrases seemed to be uttered. And then just as magically, those words stopped. We did grow up and we started figuring things out.We went of to college. We got jobs. We developed our values and beliefs. We got married...had families...changed the world from our computers! It became universally accepted that responsibility and maturity went hand-in-hand with age, part of some algebraic equation with x's and y's representing our emotional growth and ages.

Our adult lives often become monuments to our evolution as man. We begin to say things like "I used to do that too," "When I was a kid I liked that," "I can't believe how stupid I was back then," or maybe even passing down that immortal phrase to our own children: "When will you grow up!?" What we are implying is that we've graduated into a time and place where we no longer make the mistakes of our youth and that we're better off as a result of our advancing years. 

 Things feel pretty good when we've made it, until something comes along and shakes our confidence in ourselves. Makes us realize that maybe we haven't evolved as far as we thought we had. We come across someone like Leeland Camara. Leeland isn't some über-successful CEO. He's not a politician. He doesn't have any hit records or movies. He doesn't drive a fancy car- in fact he doesn't drive a car at all. Leeland is 5. He also suffers from a life-altering disease. 

What Leeland did recently is one of those moments that make us feel like we've gotten horrifically off-track and the life equations we thought were universal suddenly fail us. The Make-A-Wish Foundation approached Leeland, who suffers from Leukemia, about helping him achieve one of his life wishes. Of course, like most 5-year-olds, he wanted to go to Disneyland. Unlike most 50-year-olds, he also had a wish to feed the hungry children in his hometown. And that's exactly what he did. He dressed up in a tuxedo and served dinner to a group of children through a local non-profit. He served everyone and didn't eat anything until he personally had ensured that everyone else had been served.

Uncle Sam pointed a finger at us in the early decades of the 1900's and stated that he wanted us. He wanted us to join the U.S. army and serve during the first and second World Wars. This iconic image went on to represent not only the U.S. asking for young men to enlist, but for men and women everywhere to lend a hand in whatever capacity they could to serve their country, be it joining the workforce to keep the economy and the supply of goods going, making wartime supplies, reporting news of the battles abroad, or caring for families who'd lost husbands and fathers during the War.

Those were different times, and the Lost Generation and Greatest Generation, to borrow from popular lexicon, were far more inclined to step up and serve. The Uncle Sam posters were quite effective, and these generations seemed to take on a unified identity, one that would be defined by caring for something greater than self and accepting responsibility for things that benefited the greater good of all. The world, and our country, was changed- largely for the better. It was changed by practical service. By people everywhere stepping up and doing what was necessary. It was changed by sacrifice and dedication, by responsibility and service. It was not changed from bedrooms, corner offices, or social media sites on our computer screens.

Now, obviously times change, and there certainly are ways to use new technologies and advancements for good. The now infamous Kony 2012 campaign was a prime example of this. Within one month of the Invisible Children organization releasing their expertly-edited video of the Ugandan war criminal, over 86 million people had clicked on and/or shared the clip. Posters, flyers, and spray-painted stencils began to appear all over the place- street corners, sidewalks, alleyways, churches. This is not an indictment of this relevant campaign; there is nothing wrong with what the Invisible Children people did. Their video was much needed in today's tuned out, apathetic United States. This is an indictment on us! On you and I.  We felt good about ourselves because we suddenly knew about a horrible man and his horrible acts on children and the country of Uganda. We were aware.

And that's the thing. Awareness has replaced service. If we relaunched the Uncle Sam campaign to accurately reflect today's world there would be Facebook pages, internet memes, Twitter accounts and websites with the still famous pointing Uncle Sam uttering slightly different words: 'I Want You to be Aware!' Again, there is NOTHING wrong with awareness, but awareness can be extremely hollow if it does not translate to action and service. I'm aware of the growing problem with homelessness and hunger in our own country. I'm aware of the increase in violence on children in schools. I'm aware of the number of children who can't read and thus won't have a proper education. I'm aware of the horrific hate crimes that increasingly take place because of someone's sexual orientation or skin color. I'm aware of many things, but what am I doing with this awareness? What are you doing with your awareness? If we're honest, most of us would say not enough.

That's why a 5 year-old kid named Leeland gets it. He was aware of a problem in his own hometown, and he put that awareness into action. He served. Nike had it right all along: 'Just Do It!' It's not enough to just know it. And there's an addendum to that as well- don't let your circumstances get in the way of your action. If a child with a serious disease can act, so can we. In fact, we seem to have gotten it wrong. Responsibility and maturity isn't something that we inherently evolve into with age. There's a certain sense of devolution taking place in fact, at least in terms of our attitudes towards the problems around us. Our minds can't conquer everything, and maybe Leeland Camara has something to say to us:

"When will you grow up!?"

What do you think about awareness and its relationship to action? What can you do to change your own immediate world? How can we use social media for more than awareness?