"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it."
- Helen Keller
Blind and deaf from the age of 19 months, Helen Adams Keller knew what it was like to have nothing in the world. During her critical formative first decade of life, she knew nothing except what she touched, smelled and tasted. From the stories that were told of that early period, even those senses were all bitter.
Helen had a brilliant mind, but nothing she could do with it. It was the worst kind of imprisonment. No one says that she went mad as a child because no one says that about children. She acted mad.
Only Anne Sullivan was able to bring her, slowly, out of her private hell. Though she remained blind and deaf, she went on to graduate from college and become a lecturer and writer until here death in 1968 at the age of 88 years.
She knew from intense personal experience that suffering can be overcome, if someone cares. In this case, Anne Sullivan not only cared, but she knew how to solve Helen's problem, at least to overcome the worst of her handicaps, her imprisoned mind. Anne knew how to release the potential for great good.
We can only imagine what Anne Sullivan felt like when she was able to bring such a heroine as Helen Keller to the world.
Would you have made the sacrifice that Anne made, if you knew the results that could be achieved?
If you could make only a small investment of time and energy to end wars, drug use, home invasions, most crime, homelessness and many kinds of mental illness, would you make that investment?
That's all the supporters of 'Turning It Around' are asking of you. Learn about the program, tell others about it (there is nothing to sell, it's just a matter of telling others about what you learned in a book) and be prepared to join with others when submissions are made to politicians to make changes in direction for education systems. Those changes will all be approved by you because they will be things you agree with anyway.
There will be no revolution involved, no more than Helen Keller experienced when she became a real person instead of a "wild animal." You will know what is right and you will be asking (along with many others) for what is right to be taught to all children. Not just to most, to every child.
Think it can't be done? Many people told Anne Sullivan that she could never make a difference in the life of the wild little girl who couldn't see, hear or speak (she had a voice, she simply had nothing to do with it).
If you want to ignore this message, go ahead and quit. Anne Sullivan didn't, and the world is grateful to her for what she accomplished with a task that required far more sacrifice than TIA will every require of anyone.
These major changes can be made. We know how. You will too, once you read the book. But they can't happen with only a few people in each country. We need more people to know about it.
This is the biggest and most important movement for social change in human history. You are fortunate to be here at the beginning. You can become a founder.
Please visit our web site and join our support group (no cost to either of those). If money is a problem, borrow the book from your local library or borrow a book from someone who has already read it. They will share.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to spread the word that there are simple and cheap ways to end the social problems that affect every one of us. More people need to learn how.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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Comments: 6
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Anne Sullivan was a heroine, while Helen Keller was the star. Helen was worshipped as a heroine for much of her adult life, not so much because of what she accomplished by overcoming her disabilities, but because of what she made a great effort to teach the rest of the world.
That's a world that could see her, hear her and read what she had written.
You are right about "one person at a time." The world changes for the good only this way. If each person would positively influence only two others, the world would be different within a generation.
There are no dragons to be slayed. Only some friends who are too used to doing nothing while complaining about how badly others are treating their responsibilities.
People who believe they are helpless open themselves to be led by fear.
Those who would lead, but not through fear, must lead through love.
"Loving activism" (though I love the term) is almost redundant. We don't associate activism with love because we hear about activism on the news and it's certainly not loving. But that is not activism. It's simply another way to lead through fear. Leading through fear is always self serving.