Is a mensch born or made? In-depth interviews with more than a hundred humanitarians reveal a surprisingly clear answer. Though they tend to have certain things in common, every single person shared one experience in particular: "A transformative engagement with 'the other,'" according to Cheryl Keen, Ed.D.
Early in life, "These people got to know someone very well who they previously thought was very different from them," says Keen of Antioch College in Ohio. "By working or studying or traveling together, they came to understand that the person was more like them than not."
And, she says, that experience "jolted their idea of who they were and where they stood in the world, challenging their previously held assumptions about who was 'one of us' and who was not."
Other traits shared by these good samaritans include: an awareness of the complexity and interrelatedness of human problems; an unwillingness to fence off their philanthropic work from the rest of their lives; and an ability to turn anger, sorrow, and other negative emotions into a force for good.
