What Are You Doing for Others—And, By Extension, for Yourself?

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’”

Today, as we mark the MLK Day of Service, we think it’s the perfect question to be asking. For as Peter Drucker pointed out, doing for others is crucial not only for the recipients of these services but also for the volunteers themselves.

“The more satisfying one’s knowledge work is, the more one needs a separate sphere of community activity,” Drucker wrote in Managing in a Time of Great Change. “The volunteer who works in an American church as a counselor to young marrieds; who works in a local school with learning-impeded children as a tutor; who works with . . . children as a scout leader—and there are thousands of such volunteer activities—creates a sphere of personal achievement but also a community in which people sharing their values work together for a common good.”

We wish all our Dx readers a happy and safe Martin Luther King Jr. Day.