In a recent blog post, Lara Galinsky of Echoing Green talks about how each new Echoing Green Fellow is asked to answer the question, "Why do you do what you do?" "It gets to the heart of what we believe is one of the most important attributes of social entrepreneurs – self-awareness," writes Galinsky.
Why Do You Do What You Do (wdydwyd) is a community art project created by social entrepreneur, Tony Deifell, that asks people to combine an image and text to answer the question, "Why do you do what you do?"
Galinsky explains that Deifell came up with the idea for wdydwyd when, "[H]e realized he didn’t have an answer when asked. Having started several nonprofits, he was doing, doing, and more doing. Perhaps, like many of us, he took the Why for granted?"
It's a tough question when you really think about it. Why do you do what you do, particularly as it relates to trying to create positive change in the world?
When I thought about how to answer the question, all kinds of things came to mind:
* So the next generation can live without worry.
* To give people hope in uncertain times.
* To be of service.
But honestly, when you get down to it, most of the things I choose to spend my time on, I choose because I think they're fun. Not very deep, but it's true.
You can add your wdydwyd photo to the wdydwyd Flickr group, and join the wdydwyd Facebook group, or wdydwyd Ning group.
You can see the Echoing Green Fellows' answers to wdydwyd on the Echoing Green home page.
Full disclosure: I've worked for Echoing Green.
Photo of me by the hubs.
Cross-posted from BlogHer.
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