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How Can Young People Contribute Positively to the Lives of

Those Around Them?
A Descriptive Narrative

This question came to me years ago during my high school experience. I was a
scrawny and shy kid removed from the popular groups but had acquaintances all
around. Progressing through my years of schooling I noticed a strange phenomenon:
people changed, grew older and more mature, but our emotions and behaviors stayed
the same. My high school friends and I grew physically and professionally, but we all
maintained the same emotional and behavioral characteristics stagnantly. In other
words, growing up I saw some people choose to act the same way and stay living in the
past. Once I became aware of the “pause” in character growth and people’s common
ability to stall themselves in my classmates, it opened my eyes to many adults who fell
victim to their own self-destruction the same way.

The conclusion I came to is there are two main types of adults who contribute to
society. One type of person adapts to changes and thrives. The other type of person;
doesn’t change, suffers from their circumstances, and survives in the same cycle for
periods of time. As I looked around the hallways of my high school, I saw the faces of
my friends and classmates who were merely existing. We all woke up early, sleep-
deprived, stressed from juggling school work and social lives. We never really lived or
thrived.

People have characters and if their life remains the same, then their character
never improves or changes. I really began to look at those around me and scrutinize my
life. This is when I became very interested in physics; volunteering as my Physics
department’s TA and jumping into the highest-level AP Physics class offered. As I was
studying the basic principles of physics and how scientific rules govern the world. If
scientists could figure out mathematically how much air impacts an object's trajectory I
began to wonder if it was possible to measure how people impact each other.

Inquiry Proposal Research

My inquiry proposal is how can young people contribute positively to the lives of
those around them? I became obsessed with this idea because I wasn’t happy with my
life at this point. I wanted to be more extroverted, to increase my friend groups. I needed
to feel what my life could look like and I just wanted to be more satisfied with what I’d
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done so far. In my inquiry process I started to research if it was possible to measure

someone’s life satisfaction, how to improve your life satisfaction, and how to contribute
positively to those around you. This information was hard to find and process, but just
like anything else the hardest part was starting.

The first source that led to the beginning of my inquiry was IvyWise Knowledge
Base, an online newsletter founded by Dr. Kat Cohen, one of the world’s leading
independent college admissions counselors. In this article it discussed students in the
21st century are driven to make meaningful impacts inside and outside of the classroom
for personal gain and resume reasons. The article defined the main cause for students
making impacts in their community was the competitiveness of scholarships and college
admissions. I don’t disagree with this article because the average high-school student
experiences stress and anxiety to complete enough to be accepted. Just like any high
schooler in America would, I went through my fair share of stressing where I want to go,
how to stand out against the thousands of other applicants, and to make a small
difference where I can.

In contrast, my journey to answer this meaningful question wasn’t just about

college or standing out in the application pile. I wanted to make a real difference in this
world, I wanted to be happier, I wanted to raise the people around me up, and most of
all I wanted a different future for my children. This deeper purpose I was drawn to in life
is a well-established theory in psychology that I delved into researching next.

My desire for a more satisfactory life was the basis for therapy designed by Viktor
Frankl in the 1950’s called logotherapy. I researched an overview of Logotherapy
reviewed by an assistant professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. Frankl’s
theory of logotherapy could be boiled down to what the words meant; logos stands for
meaning or logic, therapy is a treatment intended to relieve or heal a disorder. Simply
put, Frankl’s logotherapy was designed to help trauma patients cope by finding a
deeper meaning in their life. Frankl developed this theory after he survived the horror of
concentration camps during WW2 with one basic belief. “Everything can be taken
from a person except their freedom to choose their attitude in any given set of
circumstances.” In the extreme circumstances of surviving the Holocaust left Frankl
with the realization his attitude in horrible circumstances was the reason he survived. By
talking to trauma patients, helping them find meaning in their life, improving their well-
being the next 40 years of psychology were revolutionized.

Naturally I agreed with Frankl’s assessment of how to improve your life by finding
meaning and choosing your attitude regardless of your circumstances. I empathize with
his experience because I was living in a set of harsh circumstances; a dysfunctional
family, a toxic environment, and living stress-inducing lifestyle. Instead of becoming a
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victim to my surroundings, taking my attitude into my hands was the key to changing my
lifestyle. My negative circumstances motivated me into changing my life instead of
wallowing in it. In the words of Frankl’s theory the meaning I found in my life was the
search for more fulfillment. I wanted to contribute more to the world, make more
meaningful connections, have more impacts in my community and live a fulfilled life. I
had some relative ease looking through these last sources because they were
opinionated and theory based. The next article I found unlocked the connection I made
years ago between scientific measurement in physics, people’s attitude, and the impact
people have on their life.

The Quantitative Approach

The next perspective required for my proposal was scientific measurement. This
aspect of psychiatry which was unfounded was documented by Dr. Battista who
graduated from Stanford and currently worked as a resident in Psychiatry at a
Neuropsychiatric Institute teamed up with Dr. Almond who was at the time an Assistant
Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford Medical School, supported by grants from the
National Institute of Health (NIH) and the US federal government. The experiments and
extensive literature published by these two has revolutionized the field of Psychiatry.
(The Development of Meaning in Life, Battista & Almond)

In 1973 Battista and Almonds experiment attempted to create an instrument for

measuring someone’s satisfaction in life. A population of over 5000 Dutch citizens were
given an assessment to record their satisfaction in life, given treatment of logotherapy
(to help them find meaning in their lives), then retested life satisfaction using these
same assessments called the Life Regard Index (LRI). This experiment proved the
hypothesis; people’s view on their purpose in life is directly correlated to their
overall well-being. This lab report provided concrete evidence to jump from Frankl’s
idea of therapy helping trauma patients cope with the real world, to how anyone can live
a better quality of life with a higher well-being. The connection this article established
from Frankl’s work is; people use their attitude as a tool to determine their meaning
in life which directly correlates to their physical and psychological health.
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In addition, over the next 25 years the reliability and validity of the LRI was tested
with different ethnic groups, different areas, and against different meanings in life
assessments. In a comprehensive lab report published 17 years later, Dominque
Debatz summarized the results compared to the original Battista and Almond
experiment. Briefly this lab report confirmed the LRI is the most accurate measurement
of satisfaction in life and it’s the easiest formatted assessment to see change in an
individual's life view. Another important connection this source demonstrated was;
people with more supportive relationships than negative score higher on the framework
subscale. In other words, people with supportive friends and family generally have
better physical and mental health.

How to Contribute Positively

Now my research had led me to why I was reaching for a more meaningful life.
The answer is different for everyone but my answer for becoming enlightened was to
feel more satisfied and live for a purpose. My next source showed me how one person’s
purpose can impact others and contribute positively to the community around them. The
Ted Talk by Cleo Wade is all about how everyone wants to change the world, but we
need to start by being brave.

Specifically, the speech Wade made applied to the pathos of the audience as
she challenged listeners with what we hear everyday of life.

“When the world asks us big questions that require big answers: We have two
choices; become so overwhelmed or underqualified we do nothing, or we start one
small act and qualify ourselves.” The speaker convinces us we can impact the world
and need to change the dark future we’re looking at. This is not to say that people aren’t
engaging in making the world a better place right now. She argues we as collective
humanity are aware; we need to do better but get caught up in how exactly to make a
difference. We just need to do a better job at starting to make a difference.

She claims society, media, and the world asks us with its actions; “what should
we do?” I agree the world is highly saturated with negatives in society and media.
Overarching problems like climate change, pollution, political corruption, and civil
injustices seem so overwhelming to solve with a simple solution like starting small.
Wade’s argument is instead of asking how we can do better on the world stage, how do
we show up: to make impacts in our community, at our street corner, or our dinner
table?

By spreading kindness and promoting the “ripple” effect, the speech urges
listeners to start one small act and qualify themselves as worthy to impact the
world and people around them. On the one hand I agree that starting small and
working your way up is integral to creating a movement bigger than yourself. Yet I
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still insist that you must start something small you're passionate about, so you can
live a meaningful life, help impact those around you positively, and make a
difference that lives on past you. All of my sources that I researched enlightened
different perspectives of my inquiry, but they intertwine to produce one complex
procedure on how and why to contribute positively to those around you.

A Simple Solution

In my journey through living this question I realized there’s no black and white solution
to change the world and those around you. The bolded statements are a start but each
person really needs to define their own purpose or create a whole life project. I’ll leave
you with the advice of the Ted Talk; “Start by doing what you can, with what you
got, where you are, in your own way...by being brave enough to care about
something bigger than yourself.”

My personal advice is sometimes you need to take a leap of faith before you find
something to fall back on.