Sydian Mikesell

My name is Sydian Mikesell. I’m currently a YLabber at One Stone’s design school exploring the many things that excite me through their program. Through my experiences at One Stone, I have been able to fulfil my Why Statement which is: “To understand the causality of all situations in order to identify problems and subsequently create solutions for the greater good.” Sometimes I get lost in trying to understand the causality of things that I forget the reason I’m doing it in the first place. My artifact helps me reflect on the good I’ve done and see the impact that I’ve had on my community. “Good” is a very abstract concept, primarily based on your values and moral code. It means something different to everyone, and can sometimes be hard to articulate and explore the complexities that arise when examining it in depth. I, however, have had the opportunity to think of this on a philosophical level and define, on a surface level, what good means to me. Because of my experience with exploring my values in depth, it’s easy for me to say that “doing good” means helping or contributing in some way to the growth, development, or improvement of my community and society as a whole or the environment. Of course there are many other underlying values such as justice and rationality that support my ultimate values (community and sustainability) which I have defined as “good.” This is why my Why Statement is centered around identifying the problems in the world so that I might help fix them. Over the last ten weeks I have changed a lot. Working to create and do good in my community has shown me that you can still have a major impact by doing small, ordinary, simple things. One example of the impact I had on a small thing I did that I later realized had a big impact was volunteering for Love of Learning. Although I originally didn’t want to participate in a Project Good experience in large part due to some of the depression I was experiencing, Allison pushed me to engage with Love of Learning. At first I was not sold on the idea that what I was doing was beneficial for the kids. I wondered why I was wasting my time, but I showed up, gave it 100%, and built a connection with my buddy. After a few weeks, I casually asked my buddy what the best part of his week was. He easily said that the best part of his week was seeing me of course. This is when I realized the impact that I had. My artifact is a poem that reflects this experience.