I have finally come to the realization that being a caped crusader is not a viable career option.

I have no super strength to move heavy objects, nor do I have the ability to turn invisible, scale buildings, or fly. Heck, I don’t even have shark repellent! The fact of the matter is, I won’t be single-handedly stopping forces of evil from destroying the earth any time soon.

It’s a depressing reality check but knowing that I can do something to slightly improve the world in one way or another makes me feel a little bit better. If I can do it in spandex, added bonus.

What can I do, what can we do? Where do we start? We’ve talked a lot about volunteerism on this site and that’s a fabulous way to give yourself to others but what else is there?

While digging, I came across this site called GOOD, an online community of people looking to, in their words, “push the world forward”. The site consists of a blog, a magazine, and a series of interactive tools that cover a variety of topics and shed light on things we wouldn’t normally hear about or have access to.

What held my attention was the Harmony Ecosystem feature on the site. It really puts everything into perspective. The interactive graphic (shown above) interconnects important global issues that we normally hear about separately. It sets out to prove that each cog in the earthly machine can affect one another significantly.

Each section of the graphic represents a different social/environmental concern (i.e. health, education, earth etc…). If one clicks on the “Earth” icon for example, smaller icons will pop up providing graphs, videos, and organization spotlights on this particular topic.

After taking a journey through this web of information, there’s a “what now?” option. It goes through the different things you can do in each topic provided. For example, under ‘education’, it is suggested that you donate unwanted books to Books For Africa sending, you guessed it, books to African countries. The site is charged by a need to spread knowledge and, more importantly, encourage action.

So, what now? Go check out the site. Use your super-human powers to become more educated and involved in the world around you. Do some GOOD.

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Going Out, Green, Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: books for Africa, ecosystem, giving back, GOOD, Recession, Romi Levine, Screw You Recession, superpowers, volunteerism