Bill Gates’ Sr Showing Up for Life - Showing up

Bill Gates Sr is the father of the Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He was a prominent lawyer in Seattle who owned his private practice, but is now retired. In this audio material by him titled Showing up for life : Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime, Bill Gates Sr talks about the values he holds on to in life.  He has adopted the suffix "Sr." to distinguish himself from his more famous son. Bill Gates, his son, gave an introduction to the audio material, addressing to his Dad that the next time people asked whether he was the real Bill Gates, to tell them ‘Yes’, and that he is all the things the other one strives to be.

The first chapter of the audio material was about showing up. Bill Gates Sr states the following in the audio material.

“When I was a young lawyer in the 1950s, I first became involved with causes in the community by joining the board at the YMCA where I had spent many happy hours as a college student. After a while, I decided I wanted to do more in community and help out in a hands on way. So in addition to pro-bono work, I started serving on communities and boards, everything from chamber of commerce to school levy campaigns. Over time the nature of them change, and the numbers great. My wife Mary was showing up for her own list of cause. Why do I show up so much? Well, I suppose there are many reasons. I show up because I care about a cause, or because I care about the person who asked me to show up, and maybe sometimes because I get irritated when other people do not show up. My obsession with showing up has become a joke among my children; still I noticed that they have picked up the habit. And frankly, that is what happened to me.  I started showing up because as far back as I can remember, I watch people I admire show up.”  

I like the perspective that Bill Gates Sr gives about showing up and volunteering for causes that there are in one’s community. Indeed, I think such a value has rubbed off his son Bill Gates who now undertakes philanthropic work with his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is about taking initiative to volunteer at causes where help is required, and I think Singapore society can do better if people take on a more volunteering spirit when it comes to helping out in community causes. For myself, I figure that I should be more active in helping out with causes around my community, whether this be in school, in church, or in my neighbourhood. During the last campaigning for the Singapore general election in 2011, the member of parliament for my constituency, Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, was doing his rounds going from house to house to greet the residents. He told me that I could help serve the community by serving out administrative roles for the residents’ consultation sessions with the Member of Parliament. I was reluctant to because I wanted to spend more time studying for law school. But since I am now on leave of application, I figure I might want to give it a try. It would be an avenue for me to interact with the residents from Yishun coming from different walks of life, and to understand the issues that they face in life.

I wish I could show up for more causes in law school and in church, but I do suffer from some self-confidence issue about my capabilities. For example, I initially signed up for the pro-bono club at law school, but I decided to pull out when there was a project which required members to research and write about how prevailing laws should be reformed. I have not been doing too well in law school, and I find research and writing difficult for some strange reasons, so I was worried that I may end up not being able to put things together. I tried joining the LSIRC (Law School International Relations Committee) when I first came into law school because I thought it might give me an avenue to interact with Japanese exchange students as I was quite fond of Japanese culture. But I was rejected after the interview, presumably because I did not exude the quality of being sociable enough to interact with foreign students on exchange. But I did volunteer in one such activity that was organized by the committee by bringing out some law female students from Hong Kong University around Orchard.

I really wish I could ‘show up’ more in life, and participate in more causes and activities in life. I suppose it would really help if I overcome my lack of self-confidence, and if I were to inculcate a more pro-active approach to going about things in life by actively identifying causes and participating in them.

This lesson on showing up reminds me of the parable of the talents in the bible where the lazy servant was punished for not putting his talents to use, whilst the industrious servant was rewarded for putting his talents to use. I suppose the moral of the story is that there is an obligation on us by God to put whatever talents that we have to good use, and we will have to account to God on how we exercise our talents while we are here on earth.