by Jennifer Chenoweth
A mission or cause is a campaign for a minority voice. It draws attention to something difficult, overlooked or unique. If it is popular or profitable, its probably not a cause. It requires extra care and action.
Someone else's cause makes us look at our own good fortune and realize we just woke up lucky today. Sometimes the cause is our own, as we urgently look at our own short time to solve a problem.
We care about a cause because our mothers, grandfathers, or teachers experienced something hard and we learned from their experience. Sometimes that hard thing happens to someone in our care: a daughter, a child, a student, a neighbor. Or we share our world with a creature affected by humans: a stray dog, a polar bear.
There is both love and bit of outrage in a cause. It is something we cannot just let go or forget. A cause motivates us to change by taking action. We cannot live with ourselves if we don't act.
What is your cause, and what are you going to do about it?
