Last week an earthquake rocked Nepal, and a man I knew and respected perished along with countless others in a tragedy that called on me to really ask the deep questions. What can I do? As well as the eminent question the fragility of the human experience brings in these moments: How am I living my life? What narrative will endure beyond my own passing?
As I asked these questions I watched yet another riot ensue as a feeling of anger and helplessness erupted into the streets of Baltimore. It brought a deep sense of hopelessness and sadness.
It called on me think of those who have inspired me in times of great challenge. I thought of Nelson Mandela, and reflected on a story that is deeply personal to me.
Four years ago, I was sitting in a barn with a few friends as the inaugural U.S. director of the Global Poverty Project. We had little to no money and we were asking ourselves how to do we tell the story of the movement to end extreme poverty in a way that inspires meaningful action? Not as a story laden with guilt and shame, but one that celebrates our shared humanity and the progress we can make together. It was in that barn that I and a few others birthed and committed to grow Global Citizen and the Global Citizen Festival, a platform created to tell the story of our shared humanity in a way that uplifts and inspires action around an end to extreme poverty.
The Global Citizen Festival in Central Park, NYC.
We all dug deep to our core to pull off the inaugural Global Citizen platform and festival in 2012, and an incredible team evolved from our vision. Eventually it grew to become the burgeoning movement it is today, a platform with millions of citizens interested in a shared narrative co-created for a new global conversation, one that sees beyond borders and short sided interests to our collective possibility.
What I never shared was the deeply personal aspect of the story, which was that while we were building all of this, my father was diagnosed with cancer. My dad is one of the most loving, nonjudgmental people you will ever meet, the kind of guy that would pick up a stranger at 2 AM and give them a ride if they needed one. I went through the range of emotions anyone does when the man they love most on the planet may be taken from them, but I channeled it into building something to make him proud.
With dad on our trip through South Africa.
I think about all the anger out there, the lack of fairness that many people face in their lives, the anger I see channeled into riots on the streets of our major cities, the hopelessness that stems from a lack of agency, and the dignity that slowly erodes one's sense of self-worth as jobs move and one cannot take care of their family. This is an issue here in the US, and it is an issue faced by more than a billion of our fellow citizens around the world.
My heart goes out to those contending with far greater tragedies than I have ever faced. I do not pretend to know the challenges beset by race or those living in extreme poverty, but I often reflect on those shining lights among us that light the way. The Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther Kings of the world, who in spite of extreme injustice manage to forgive great personal slight in the face of a greater vision.
A year ago my dad was diagnosed with dementia. I never shared it publicly, but told my dad I would take him anywhere in the world he wanted to go. We went to South Africa and traveled to see Nelson Mandela's cell, and the country he would later move and inspire and lead in a way few thought possible. My dad now spends his days reading and rereading A Long Walk to Freedom. For Christmas he gave me his copy. Every line was highlighted. As his memory declines, he still speaks to me of the majesty of what Mandela represented.
I don't know if there is a magic path in the challenges that face us, one that leads through the tragedies of our time, through the pain and suffering that life can bring, but on my dark days I look to the everyday citizens... the woman I saw yesterday walk a blind man across the street, the young man in China who walks his paralyzed friend to school every day on his back, the everyday heroes all around us, and I choose to see the beauty in the challenges.
Global Citizen has grown beautifully and I will continue to be an ambassador of this vision we birthed together. As I recognize now more than ever the preciousness of the moment, I’m choosing to create memories with my dad while I still can, and committing my life to the stories that inspire our possibility, the possibility that elevates us all in our shared humanity.
Dad with Wilfrid Macena, Haitian hero and Global Citizen award winner at the inaugural Global Citizen Festival.
by Michael Trainer, co-creater of Global Citizen and the Global Citizen Festival