Self-actualize, or 'pay it forward'

In the 1980s, I worked for a wealthy New York businessman who used to take me and other managers to lunch. This man, worth many millions of dollars, used to review the restaurant bill line-by-line -- removing his eyeglasses to peer closely at the figures. Today, I do the same thing. He did other things, too. I frequently saw him be ruthless with vendors. Dozens of companies would work with him only once because he refused to pay on time and often would pay only half what was owed. He was good to me personally but, as far as I know, he never did anything charitable with his fortune.

The psychologist Abraham Maslow came up with a theory called "the hierarchy of needs." To truncate Maslow's idea, if a person's fundamental needs were met (food, sleep, sex, shelter, et al.), he or she could move up to the next level of needs, safety and security. If those needs were met, a person moved up to needs of esteem. The top tier of needs, attainable only if all the lower levels were met, was called "self-actualization." Included in self-actualization was benevolence -- in other words, altruism and gifts to charity. In his twilight years, Maslow lamented the fact so few people tended to self-actualize. My old boss was one of those people.

But other people got there. Andrew Carnegie built a magnificent music hall in New York City and gave money to create 2,500 public libraries across America, including the one in Cape Girardeau; I now serve as president of the library's board of trustees. He also funded more than 7,000 church organs.

A wealthy 19th century Tennessee riverboat captain named Tom Ryman was angry at Sam Jones, a fiery preacher who assailed gambling and other forms of recreation. Jones' words directly impacted Ryman's financial bottom line. Ryman went to hear Jones speak in 1885. Convicted by his words, Ryman built Jones a church -- the Union Gospel Tabernacle in Nashville. When Ryman died, the church was renamed the Ryman Auditorium and for 40 years, it became the home of the Grand Ole Opry.

In 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon that got him fired. In those days, the complete texts of sermons at large churches were reprinted in The New York Times. (Imagine that, huh?) Fosdick's sermon, "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" cost him his pulpit. John D. Rockefeller Sr., almost certainly the wealthiest man who ever lived, himself a devout, teetotaling Baptist, decided that Fosdick deserved a church where he could preach whatever God put in his mouth to say. Rockefeller built for him Riverside Church next to Columbia University, still today one of the most significant mainline Protestant churches in the nation.

This column is in praise not of wealthy folks, per se, but of those persons who use their significant means to -- in Maslow's words -- self-actualize. People who are blessed materially and who use those gains for the betterment of others; people who "pay it forward." We need more of them.

For those of us who comprise a more modest socioeconomic status, there is a way to self-actualize that will cost you time and a bit of discomfort, but no money. The Red Cross is always in need of blood. Just keeping up with hospital demand, an estimated 800 donations per day in the two-state Missouri and Illinois region, is a challenge. And this estimable institution, which responded to its first disaster in the Johnstown, Pa., flood of 1889, is falling behind its quota. Sure, there are some who cannot give blood due to age and physical condition. But an awful lot of us can -- every 56 days. We need more of these folks, too. Maybe you could be one of them.

Dr. Jeff Long is executive director of the Chateau Girardeau Foundation, is part-time faculty in religious studies at SEMO and is a retired United Methodist clergyman. Married with two teenage children, he resides in Cape Girardeau.