When I asked myself how can I best make a difference, I decided to help others answer that question for themselves.
For years, I climbed the corporate ladder in order to make more money to give back to the causes that I believed in. I learned a lot from my career and wanted to apply that experience in my volunteer work so that non-profits could benefit. Then 2020 happened, and suddenly I felt that what I was doing before was no longer enough.
I wondered how could people cope with a new reality when so many were already overworked and underappreciated? Surveys found 2020 to be the most stressful year of our generation. Our society has still not fully understood its implications or adapted. We have so many other existing challenges to undertake that make our daily lives seem overwhelming. Where can we start if we want to make a difference when we are so busy just trying to make ends meet or provide for our family, never mind carve out a few minutes for ourselves everyday?
Surmountable was founded to help citizens find the answer to this question – and not just about healthcare, culture, fair elections, or better candidates. How can we address the many different issues that paradoxically keep us up at night with anxiety while seeming so impossible that we also ignore them, because we cannot even fathom a path forward? The truth is that there are individual solutions out there for every topic; they have just never been organized in one place before until now.
Take a step back and imagine receiving answers every week rather than being distracted by mounting questions from a deluge of 24 hour news. Thanks to some brief historical context, goals that society can pursue, and suggestions that anyone can follow, now you can do your part without getting bombarded. So you can either make a difference in the short term or even potentially change the world for generations to come. Without having to quit your day job. It is possible to make progress on these daunting challenges, one at a time, by finally understanding how your contributions fit into the bigger picture on our most complex problems.
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