As I move closer to 50 years of experiences and knowledge in my own life, I have come to realize that the greatest set-back to happiness in life is constantly struggling to be successful or popular. The greatest problems in life stem from seeking power and control – and ultimately it’s a lack of self-worth and value of one’s own knowledge and uniqueness (and accepting that of others) that sets back social benefit.

When we listen to the negative voices internally in our own heads and externally by others that call us worthless, unsuccessful or powerless we can see ourselves and the many individual experiences that have created our own unique individual knowledge as worthless. When this happens, we are ignoring all of the knowledge that we have gathered and have up to whatever point we are at in life…whatever age we are…and we forget the value of our own knowledge. And it’s not just academic knowledge learned in school that I’m talking about.  It’s the more important everyday knowledge about living life as you – “be yourself no matter what they say” (thank you very much Sting) – in order to contribute to making our world a better place for everyone. We cannot forget this last, important point – our actions should always be about trying to make society better, working together as unique individuals, remembering how individual knowledge connected to other individual knowledge has shaped us into the valuable people – human beings – we all are. That is what individual knowledge mobilization is all about.

Each of us is unique.  Each of us has unique experiences and knowledge to share with others and contribute to make this world a better place.  It took me a long time to recognize that in myself – and sometimes I still find those negative voices trying to overpower me. I wish I had heard more encouragement when I was growing up – parents need to recognize this most important responsibility of parenthood.  If I had parents who did, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much of my early life searching and feeling more “stupid” than knowledgeable.  I may have become more “successful” or “popular” in the sense that many think. Fortunately, I was able to meet people who saw the value in my own knowledge that I often overlooked. Fortunately, I was able to meet people who taught me the value of my own self-worth. Fortunately, we all live in an age when the power of social media for good can also help those who still hear and are still sadly guided by those negative voices – still feeling worthless and powerless.

Although it has come later in life, I now see my own value and accept it. I value my own thoughts and my ideas. I value my own knowledge and the power of individual knowledge mobilization to contribute to good in this world. I may not be “successful” or “powerful” in the sense that many people still think. But I have learned that by helping even one person recognize the value of themselves – the value of their own knowledge through my own individual knowledge mobilization, I am successful and powerful – because even in helping only one person I have contributed to making the world a better place. That’s where real success comes from. It’s when I connect my own knowledge with the knowledge of others – especially now through the use of social media – that I can make the world a better place. The original meaning of the word popular is “belonging to the people”. When we make everyone feel as if they belong, we are popular – we all become popular.

Unfortunately and realistically, the world is still full of hateful, rude or unjust people who want to hurt or insult others. There are still people who live their lives thinking that demeaning others and being cruel makes them powerful. I’ve had my own share of dealing with such people in my life. But I’ve learned they’re not really in “control”. Real control is about recognizing your own self-worth, your own uniqueness and the value of your own knowledge to rise above those hateful, rude or unjust people who do nothing to make the world a better place. It’s about individual knowledge mobilization for social benefit.