Maggie Doyne of BlinkNow is called a hero by many, but in her eyes, she’s just a compassionate, normal person looking to improve the world, one person at a time. Before co-founding BlinkNow, an organization that supports children in rural Nepal, Maggie chose to take a gap year - forgoing college - to travel the world and learn more about herself. In Nepal’s Kopila Valley, she found her calling. And in Maggie’s words, “it felt easier to stay and do something than to turn around and go home.”
Today we will discuss:
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Quotes:
9:12 “I started to question the system - this system that had been ingrained and shoved down my throat from the time I was 7, 8, 9 years old that to be successful you had to go to college. And when you really dig into that in US culture - look at college prices. They’re hundreds of thousands of dollars. We’re sending young people to go on this journey of self-discovery that costs so much money... and I just started to look at it and be like, ‘What? That’s going to help me?’”
10:02 “I remember when I started to talk about the idea of traveling and taking off for a year, my guidance counselor called me down to the office and told me I was making a huge mistake. She was like, ‘This is a mistake, you should go to college.’ And right when she said that... it just made me question it even more.”
12:21 “We’re afraid in [our] culture of doing anything different. And I think that the first step for me, as an 18-year-old, was saying, “No - I’m going to take a step aside for a second.” That was the gap year, and at the time, I think it was really brave.”
17:16 “I looked across a riverbed and saw a few dozen children breaking rocks... [and] I just locked eyes with this little girl... She smiled at me and she said, ‘Namaste didi,’ and it just stopped me in my tracks... to see a baby, a five-year-old whose entire day consists of taking rocks from a riverbed and breaking them with hopes to sell them for a dollar to survive. That was it. At that point, it felt easier to stay and do something than to turn around and go home.”
23:20 “We can’t just see things [like] violence and children suffering and turn the other way. That’s the issue right now in the world - there is so much... and I think what guided me in those early years was intuition and this feeling inside of myself that said, ‘This is it.’”
25:07 “Listen to [your] inner guide. Where is that connection happening? Where is the synergy? And then go for it. It doesn’t have to be this big step... [the world] needs everybody where they are, little-by-little, step-by-step, digging into these issues, being a voice, being an advocate.”
30:42 “People look at me and they think that I grew up in a teepee and was going and doing all of these special things and Mother Teresa was my idol, and all of these assumptions. [But] the number one thing that people say when they meet me is, ‘You’re so normal.’ And I love that. There’s so much room for those of us who are normal.”
32:41 “[You can be] donating your time, serving on a board, giving your skill, donating goods, finding 10 nonprofits in the area that you’re passionate about...
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