I have some friends who plant gardens in the backyards of Little Rock’s poorer residents.  They are sort of an association, but they aren’t a legal entity; they’re just a group of people who spend a few hours a week planting gardens. But though they may not be a formal organization, they are having a significant effect on a few people’s lives. Their costs are minimal, and they wouldn’t know what to do with a $10,000 grant. They simply saw a problem, a solution, and got working.

This past weekend I watched the documentary Man on Wire. It is the amazing tale of Philippe Petit’s daring tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers in New York. Petit was driven to walk a tightrope between the towers from the time he first heard about the World Trade Center. For years, he waited for the towers to be built, and then he worked for six years to plan how he would break in and attach a tightrope between the towers. To paraphrase what Petit says at one point in the movie, “It was impossible, so I said let’s get to work.”

So why don’t we just identify what needs to be done, dream big, and get to work?  Don’t just think or say, “We should have more people growing good food in our area.” Get a group of people together, lease some land, and grow it yourselves or hire a farmer to grow it. Don’t think or say, “We need better public transportation in our city.” Start using what public transportation your city has, or if it has none, just start car pooling and riding a bike. Formal organizations and governments are slow to move; loose associations of individuals are nimble, efficient, creative, and resourceful. Formal organizations and governments will come around and support the work that individuals have established. 

So find a problem and get a few friends together to fix it. The issues that face our world can be solved—let’s get to work.