Proof that men don’t make history because what they do, but because of who they choose to be.
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It is an old, clichéd question we were all asked before we had the tools or experience to answer. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
I personally had an exceptional answer for this. It was not only an answer but an entire routine. I would exhale, from the bottom of my lungs, exasperated, as though my last precious moment of the day had been wasted. Then I would look at my own eyebrows (this is completely different than rolling your eyes), shrug my shoulders and answer, “Uhu-uh.” Sometimes I would put my upturned hands at my side, roughly chest level, but this was a maneuver which I added years after my initial inception of the reply.
Then we condescendingly pat them on the head and walk off, teaching them a lesson they will never forget. You are what you do for a living.
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My answer to this question was horrible, but honestly it was because I didn’t have an answer to the question that was really and truly being asked. The real question was, “what job are you going to take when you have to pay your own bills?” Consider this, most young people answer that question with a vocation, “a marine biologist,” or “a doctor,” or, “head greater at the big box store.” The problem is we, as adults, accept this! Oh good, we think, you want to be defined by the job you do. You want your full identity to come from what you do for money and we smile and walk away.
But what if some strange young person answered that question differently? What if they said, “I want to be someone people like,” or “I want to be friendly,” what would we say back? “Oh no, no, no, I didn’t mean what will your personality be, I meant what do YOU want to be?” Then we condescendingly pat them on the head and walk off, teaching them a lesson they will never forget. You are what you do for a living.
I disagree with this assumption that we have been making forever. We aren’t what we do for a living. We are many other things. And I believe those other things are much more valuable than what we do for money.
And history agrees with me.
On April 18, 1775, news of British aggression towards the revolutionary leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams reached Dr. Joseph Warren. He knew it was imperative that word reach the two would-be victims and the local militia. He gave instructions that the message, “the British are coming,” should be delivered throughout the night-long ride across the countryside until it could be relayed to the men who needed to hear it most. A man took this message and raced through Roxbury, Brookline, Brighton, Cambridge and Menotomy until finally reaching Lexington. And his ride spurred into action . . . almost no one.
Because this isn’t the ride of Paul Revere, this is the ride of a man named William Dawes. And if you have read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell then you know that, as difficult as the ride may have been, it had almost no effect on the outcome of the number of troops that showed up to defend our fledgling country that day. Not because the message wasn’t relevant, or because it was delivered poorly, but, as Gladwell surmises, because of the standing which Dawes held in the community. Almost no one knew him, very few trusted him enough to risk their life on his word, and who he was spoke much louder than what he did.
But this isn’t the only story like this from history. Let me take you back in time. Back before North America was even discovered . . . unless you count the Native Americans . . . and Leif Erickson, but way before anyone, who actually wrote down history had discovered the continent. . . Unless you count petroglyphs, and the writings of Zuan Chabotto. But it was certainly before the Catholic Church made the discovery.
This bitterness created a huge gulf between the two and even caused Hooke’s face to be erased from history, literally.
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It was near the end of the 1600’s, and the world was turned on its head by the work of this man. He worked very closely with Dr. Edmund Halley, would be the president of the Royal Society, and created a mathematical equation that would go on to define how the planets revolved around each other and even how apples fell from trees. But it was not Isaac Newton.
It was a man named Robert Hooke, who worked closely with Newton and did help create a piece of the puzzle that was Principia, Isaac Newton’s breakthrough contribution to the world which helped define gravity. But why is it Sir Isaac Newton and not Sir Robert Hooke? Because Hooke was incredibly jealous, horribly bitter and has been almost erased from science. He was convinced that Newton wouldn’t have arrived at his conclusions without one mathematical calculation, the law of inverse square, which was Hooke’s. This bitterness created a huge gulf between the two and even caused Hooke’s face to be erased from history, literally. Hooke bitterly refused to step down from his post at the Royal Society, knowing that Newton would take his place. Upon his death, Isaac Newton did just that and had the one and only painting of Hooke burned, to the jubilation of most of the members. Every image ever made of Hooke since is mere speculation.
No one would listen because Ignaz Semmelwies was a jerk.
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And then there is childbed fever. In the mid to late 1800’s this epidemic was killing women five times more often in hospitals than at home with midwives. A man discovered that the problem lay in the dirty hands and tools at the clinics and that washing them could save lives. This breakthrough instigated a revolution in modern medical care and has literally saved the lives of countless women. Many attribute this cleanliness breakthrough to Joseph Lister, the man who killed morning breath. But, around the same time as Lister was making his discoveries, a man named Ignaz Semmelwies was lecturing on the very same topic. He had discovered that a lack of hand washing was the main cause of the spread of childbed fever to women and babies, and no one would listen.
No one would listen because Ignaz Semmelwies was a jerk. In a letter to some who questioned his ideas he wrote, “I declare before God and the world that you are a murderer and the “History of Childbed Fever” would not be unjust to you if it memorialized you as a medical Nero, in payment for having been the first to set himself against my life-saving theory.” He is also quoted as saying to a colleague, “You, Herr Professor, have been a partner in this massacre.”
All of these men had the information, timing and ability to change the world, and yet none did. Not because of their education, money or profession, but because of who they were when they grew up. So the next time you ask a kid, “what do you want to be when you grow up,” don’t let them answer with a profession. Because that really won’t matter.
Also by John Henderson
Photo: Getty Images