What Is The Most Good You Can Do For The World?
It's an uncommon answer these days, and a widely misunderstood truth, but truth nonetheless:
Have Children.
I will explain.
The Mistaken Reasons People Don't Have Children... And The Mistaken Reasons They Do
There is a thunderous cry, particularly in mainstream Western culture: "don't have children!" Of course, such cries generally come from the same people and publications who are happy that we're giving billions of dollars in aid to fund other cultures that have massive families (and happy that we endlessly import their populations to do the same here)... but, hypocrisy aside, they will present reasons that you should limit the size of your family, and perhaps not have children at all. Some reasons will appeal to your virtue - kids will contribute to overpopulation, think of their carbon emissions, etc. Some reasons will appeal to your selfishness - kids will cost money, they'll take up your free time, they'll be stressful, etc. Whatever reason will work on you, the message is the same:
credit: The Guardian / Time Magazine
However, many people who tell you to have kids will do just as much damage to the sacred act as its detractors. People will tell you that having children is fun and exciting. You will see people do it to build on their relationships, or worse, in the hopes of securing a failing relationship. People will have children to satisfy their instinctual urges, as the biological clock ticks away. But, anyone can see how little meaning there is in these reasons. Fun and excitement are great distractions, but do not provide lasting satisfaction and are rarely worth large investments. People destroy weak relationships by increasing complications. Living to pursue instinctual urges with no further purpose, even though such urges may be there for a reason, leads one to live life like a wild animal - supremely dissatisfying in the long run to those blessed with a human mind.
If the value of having children is so little, how could you possibly do it in the face of the objections listed above?
The Truest Value Of Having Children
Having children is the single most important choice you will ever make in this life. Almost no matter what you do for a job, what you do with your friends, or how many comments you leave on social media, you will never have 1/10th the impact on another human being that you'll have on your children. And if they continue your family line, your impact will reverberate for generations moving forward, spreading through every choice, every interaction, every decision of a thousand descendants until it has reached the whole world.
And, counter to the view of those who'd tell you not to have children, your kids are not merely interchangeable units that have a predictable standard impact on the planet. You have the opportunity to raise children with honor, with strength, with virtue. You have the opportunity to raise children with the capacity to bring greatness to the world. You cannot design the details of their entire lives, but you can give them the environment to grow into their own version of light in a society still full of so many dark corners. The genes, the interactions, the stories, the traditions, and the wisdom from your own life that you pass on - this is the deepest investment you can place into the world. And it means that the investment that was placed by others in you can continue to pay dividends, long after you're gone.
Every child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
– Rabindranath Tagore
You Still Personally Benefit From Having Children
Of course, it is not only altruistic. I like to explain with an analogy.
What is a hand? If you describe it physically, you might find that it is just some bones, muscles, tendons, nerves, skin, etc., arranged into fingers and a palm. But, if you were to find one by itself in the street, you'd realize that something was very wrong. This is because a hand is not merely its individual physical attributes, but also the functions it serves to us. In order to serve those functions, it must be attached to a greater body and work in conjunction with the other parts of that body to accomplish greater goals.
In many ways, humans are the same. Even though we may be complete individuals, we do not feel complete unless we are part of something greater, serving some function that is beneficial beyond our own immediate interests. When you become a parent, you are something more than just an individual person. You are also an important function in the outcomes for your family, your community, your culture, your species, and so on. And the benefit to yourself, while smaller than the impact it will have on the world outside you, is still greater than all of the mundane benefits that people will usually tell you.
What We Invest In The Future
What we give to our children, and what we give to the world when we have children, is an investment. Some of this probably should be financial - generational wealth is one of the ways this world's oligarchs get so powerful, and given the quality of job they are doing, we'd probably benefit the world to give them some competition by putting wealth in wiser hands. But, of course, we are investing more than financial resources.
You have the opportunity to give your children, and thus the future, the stories of things you've learned in your life, the skills that you have learned and can present first-hand, and the traditions that society and your family have invested in you. I think the saying is often quite true, that tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. As our world is plagued by problems that previous generations didn't seem to face so pervasively, perhaps we should feel a little more urgent about handing down our traditions when we can. And, as long as we can have children, we still can make those kind of investments.
The greatest legacy one can pass on to one's children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one's life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.
— Billy Graham
If You Don't Have Children Yet
If you like who you are, take ownership of your duties to those who came before you and invested in you. If you think we should make the world a better place, take ownership of your responsibilities to the future. Set your life on the right path to raise children well, but don't wait for perfection in your life. Keep the right priorities in mind, find a spouse who shares those priorities, and have children.
And remember, your children will also be imperfect, so don't wait until you feel prepared to raise the perfect kids either. But, if you can use the benefit of your wisdom and experience to raise children who are on a better path than you, then you are doing more good for this world than could be done by your own hands directly.