The other day I was having dinner with my friend Lisa, who asked me, "Loi, what are you going to write about in your next column?" It was only Tuesday, and my column had just run, so all I could respond with was, "Who knows, Lisa, who knows." Then it was Saturday and I was stuck with a bigger case of writer's block than the feeling of having to write a final research paper the night before it was due. The interview I had planned to use as the basis of this week's column had been rescheduled, so I was left with a blinking cursor on a blank page of Microsoft Word. And then it came to me, "Loi, why not write about why you are writing a column entitled, 'The Social Entrepreneur?'"
It is hard to pinpoint my exact rationale for voluntarily subjecting myself to writing an extra 750-950 word column every week on top of classes, work, friends and family. But I guess I have always enjoyed the painful process of writing. Maybe it is the masochistic runner in me, who strives to balance the stress and pain of life with the spontaneity and pleasure, that prompted me to take on this extra activity. Or perhaps it is the go-getting over-achiever that wants to do it all? Here is the story of how my column came about.
Ever since freshmen year after picking up The Tufts Daily for the first time, I have said to myself, "Loi, you're gonna write a column for the Daily before you graduate." Back then I didn't know what I wanted to write about, but I knew I had an opinion on things and wanted to share these views with the campus. I never really gave writing a column another thought until recently, when I saw the ad in the Daily asking for columnists.
I thought long and hard about what to have as the focus of my column. I looked at my interests and played around with several ideas, but then I came up with an idea, the title of the column would be, "The Social Entrepreneur." What does being a "Social Entrepreneur" mean? The spiel I give people is that it is about benefiting yourself and the community at the same time. But this is an overly simplistic view of social entrepreneurship that does not quite fully capture the meaning of the word. Not only is social entrepreneurship about benefiting yourself and the community simultaneously, it is about seeing opportunities and capitalizing on them in innovative, novel ways.
In writing this column, I wanted to bring together my passion for writing, community work, and opinionated discussion in a forum read by the Tufts community. I believe community work, whether you call it philanthropy, volunteer work, community service, active citizenship, social entrepreneurship or whatever the current buzz word for it is, should be a part of everyone's life.
One of the ways I am doing service in my life is through writing this column. I would be lying if I said I did not get anything from this column; I get an opportunity to write, to get my picture in the paper and to pad my resume. But I do not think that these self-interested reasons are the only or even the main reasons why I am writing this column. I wanted the Tufts campus, often described as apathetic and devoid of school spirit, to examine what being part of a community means.
I urge all of the readers out there, whether student, faculty member, staff or administrator, to ask themselves two questions. First, what does it mean for you to be a member of the Tufts community? Second, how can you give back to the Tufts community? What you do for the community does not have to be one-sided or even traditional in any sense, the only requirement is that you do something - be it writing a column for the Tufts Daily, participating in Kids Day, teaching English as a Second Language, picking up trash you see on the quad or raising money for the University. I ask Tufts community members to bring together their individual talents, abilities and experience to improve upon some community need. The answer to the question, "Who knows?" is that you know - you know yourself, you know your interests and you know your community.
Loi To is a junior majoring in political science and Russian. He can be reached at loi.to@tufts.edu.
