Mike Murray essay -- Just Do Something

10 December 2004

Just Do Something

--by Mike Murray

I hate most slogans. When I was working on my undergraduate and graduate degrees in business administration, I was bombarded with some doozies. "Let's run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes" was tiresome enough. The more contemporary "no brainer" grated even more. Worst of all was the insidious "bang for the buck" (as in, how best to achieve more).

Though it took some effort, I usually managed to simply smile and nod. People meant well, after all. I guess they figured that all business types talked that way. But boilerplate phraseology reduced education to its worst, in my view. People who relied too heavily on rote, cookie-cutter jargon seemed to me to be masking a lack of knowledge (or at least creativity) by their overuse of lingo. Or maybe they were just sheep. Either way, not good.

Having just trashed catch phrases, I will now proceed to stoop to one. Worse yet, I'm going to pilfer from two existing expressions, cutting and pasting to create a new one.

Most of the free world -- and good deal of the rest of it -- is by now familiar with Nike's "Just do it" slogan. The swoosh company has become omnipresent; its ads by now all-too familiar. But Nike didn't invent that configuration of words. I first heard the phrase used in an episode of The Andy Griffith Show.

An impatient executive, stranded in the town of Mayberry on a Sunday because of car trouble, finally lost his composure at hearing Barney Fife's lazily repeated pronouncements of his afternoon plans. The tightly wound exec finally bellowed: "Just do it! Go home! Take a nap! Go over to Thelma Lou's!..." Nike should issue a credit every time they run one of their copycat ads.

Another slogan that has enjoyed much play in the marketing world over the past few decades goes like this: "Do something: Lead, follow, or get out of the way." The message was initially intended, I imagine, to motivate sales people.

Neither of those messages is new, of course. Each is just another way of exhorting others to stop procrastinating, to get off their butts. And, further, to do it in a way beneficial to the exclaimer. In the case of Nike, to engage in some athletic activity -- while wearing, of course, its shoes and apparel. In the case of a marketing department embracing the "do something" motto, to move more of whatever merchandise it peddles.

Here's my bastardization of the "Just do it" and "Do something" slogans: Just do something.

I'm speaking now of volunteer service. It seems to me that a major hurdle for many people is the knowledge that no one of us can change the world. I've run into lots of folks who profess a desire to "make a difference," but who are overwhelmed by the daunting natures of society's many problems. How much difference, they've asked me, could the little bit of time and effort they have to contribute possibly make? Plenty, I tell them.

Take one area of prime concern for me: animal rescue. No matter what I'm prepared to do -- no matter how much of my time I'm willing to volunteer, no matter how much money my wife and I are willing to contribute -- I can make no substantial headway in solving the overall problem. No matter how hard I am willing to work on their behalf, I am unable to do much to save the many, many companion animals whose lives are jeopardized due to oversupply.

Multitudes of healthy animals of good temperament have their lives extinguished every day, for no reason other than humans routinely fail to spay and neuter. We fail to prevent unintended pregnancies in our pets. And, as a consequence of the unwanted births, animals pay. They pay with their very lives.

So, yes, it is true that no one of us can change the world. But (if you'll forgive me another trite expression) we can make a world of difference -- one creature at a time. When it comes to animal rescue, each critter we do manage to save has its world forever altered for the better.

And it is that huge impact that we can make at the individual level -- for humans and animals alike -- that matters so much. Effecting change on a macro scale might be beyond any one of us. But what we can do in the micro sense is truly powerful. What we are able to do to help, even in seemingly small ways, is hugely significant to those assisted.

That is especially so when it comes to efforts to improve basic welfare. Providing people and animals with the necessities of life (relief from physical harm, food to eat, a decent place to call home) is as meaningful an endeavor as there is. Doing so changes recipients' lives in profound ways.

No one of us can save the world. It's pointless to try. It's even more pointless, though, to let that reality immobilize us. We don't need to do it all. But if we'll all "just do something," the world will be a better place.

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