A Vietnamese Lullaby

by Dr. James W. Jackson
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

I traveled to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where we had teamed up with an extremely talented group of surgeons, nurses and anesthetists that specialized in incidences of pediatric cleft palates and hair lips. There was a backlog of over 7,000 children needing maxillofacial procedures. The need was overwhelming. I accompanied the doctors to the children’s wards for their pre-op rounds. My heart and attention was drawn to one particular seven-month-old Vietnamese boy. His condition was one of the most forbidding I had ever seen. He suffered a complicated double hair lip, as well as an extremely severe cleft palate. There was so much of the face missing that I could look directly into the child’s sinus cavities. Obviously, the hospital doctors had given the team a most desperate and dramatic case to reconstruct.

As the young mother handed the baby to the surgeon, her eyes and expressions did all the talking. She was literally pleading for someone to help her and her critically disfigured child. Because of the baby’s condition, it was impossible for him to suck.  The mother was required to extract the milk from her breasts and use a spoon to feed him.  She had to be very careful as she aimed the milk so that it did not spill into the air passageway and drown the child.

I slipped into some surgical scrubs and accompanied the team into the theater with my camera.  The surgeon took his pen and drew a diagram of a mouth on the surgery drape that covered the baby’s shoulders. He then took the pen and made reference dots on the baby’s face. I thought as I watched, “He not only needs to be a skilled surgeon, but he also is required to be a sensitive artist, visualizing a perfect mouth all the while he is cutting and stitching that little face.” There was a tremendous amount of concentration, and I could feel the intensity of the situation grow with each slice of the scalpel and each stitch of the curved needle.  When it was time for the surgeon to make the new lip pieces to fill in under the restructured nose, he slit open the two large flesh bulbs and began carving the tissue out of them and stretching them across to join the two beneath the nose. It was not just an exterior surface procedure that took place. The skin on the outside had to all fit together, but so did all the pieces of the tissue and muscle underneath the skin. For the bone and marrow needed to restructure the missing palate and gums, bone was extracted from the baby’s hip area.

After more than four hours of intense surgery the job was really beginning to look incredibly good. But, the surgeon was not quite happy with how the last part was coming together.  So, he unstitched part of what he had done and reformed the little lip until it came together and matched perfectly. Later that day I went with the doctors to the recovery room.  The scene that I encountered next burned a picture into my mind that I will never be able to forget. The little mother of the terribly disfigured baby and her young husband were both in the recovery room.

The baby was their first-born child. He was awake, but not crying . . .  just whimpering as he looked around for reassurance from his mommy. The doctor gently handed the baby to his mother, who was smiling from ear to ear as she took her child. Then, with the husband looking over her shoulder, the impact of the occasion slammed her. Her smiles turned to a look of disbelief and I could see her struggling, trying to determine if what she was seeing was for real, or was she just dreaming another haunting and cruel dream about having a perfectly normal baby?  She held the little guy tightly to her breast and then pulled him back up and looked straight into his face again. She could not hold the seven months of pent up emotion inside her any longer.  

She cried softly for a little while. The tears dropped down on the baby as she held him again to her breast. Then she pulled him back again and looked at him again and saw her own tears on the baby’s body and realized that the moment was not a dream. It was for real.  

Far gone now were the moments in the room where the baby was born and she had been handed the child for the first time. It had been there that the horror and disappointment had filled her mind, while at the same time, love for the precious child had filled her heart. Gone now were the long hours of rocking and walking the child, looking down at his face and questioning, “Why was my baby, my very first baby, destined to go through life like this? Did we do something wrong? Are we being punished?” There were never any answers to her questions before. But now, she was holding the beautiful baby of her dreams. She had loved him completely when he was deformed.  She now had the beautiful opportunity to love him completely, as he was whole.

The little boy’s brown eyes met the mother’s eyes and he tried to smile. That was more than she could handle. She sobbed. The young father reached into his pocket and pulled out a small dirty handkerchief.  He took the rag and began wiping the tears from the mother's face. He quietly cried. I cried freely. The tears seemed to be the telescopes that allowed us to see into heaven.  Something special had happened in that recovery room on that hot day in Ho Chi Minh. Jesus, the healer, had come to walk the halls of that hospital and touch the torn hearts of a young Vietnamese peasant couple. As I left the recovery room I could hear the mother begin to softly sing a lullaby to her child  . . . or was it angels that I heard singing?

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson.

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com

images: Drs. James W. and AnnaMarie Jackson

Life's Finest

by Dr. James W. Jackson

Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

Recently, Winston-Crown Publishing House published the book, “THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE WORLD: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist.” In using the term “happiest man,” I didn’t intend to write a treatise on the subject of “happiness.” I simply wanted to tell the unusual story of the phenomenon called “Project C.U.R.E.,” and share a bit of the privilege and excitement I experienced through being a part of the adventure. However, the term “happiness” has sparked some unexpected inquiries and has started at least a hundred conversations. Happiness is a pretty hot subject.

I have decided to pass on, in future articles, some of the comments and concepts that have been generated from our discussions regarding “happiness.” In a broad sense, I have concluded that “Life is full of alternatives, alternatives demand choices, choices set into motion consequences; how we reconcile and manage the consequences that have been set into motion by our choices will determine the level of our happiness.” Even if consequences are imposed upon us by others, yet, how we reconcile and manage those consequences that have been set into motion will determine our level of happiness.

Another concept regarding happiness has come through personal observation throughout my lifetime: “If a man tells me he is a ‘happy person,’ I try to discreetly find out from him the three people he has made happy, recently. If he is not engaged in making other people better off, then he is not yet truly happy, because he is still consumed with himself.”

Project C.U.R.E. (http://www.projectcure.org/) is a large organization that is viewed as a service vehicle, capable of fulfilling a person’s desire to help make other people “better off.” That intrigues me. We have over 12,000 volunteers throughout the U.S. actively engaged in collecting, sorting, inventorying, packing, and delivering medical goods that will be sent to thousands of clinics and hospitals in 123 countries around the world. The volunteers have a burning desire to help those needy people, even though they will probably never meet them personally or ever receive a “thank you” for loving and helping them. But, through the act of making other people happy, they have personally set into motion consequences that bring happiness back to them, the volunteers. Additionally, Project C.U.R.E.’s efforts to afford the volunteers an opportunity to make others better off have returned to bless Project C.U.R.E. immeasurably.

And now, for a more personal note, someone asked me recently, “What are some of the finest things you are experiencing as the ‘happiest man in the world?'” My answer was simple:

“Unfailing love and faultless fidelity from my mate is my Finest Treasure,
Good health is my Finest Possession,
A clear conscience is my Finest Friend, and,
Assurance of spending forever and forever with my friends in heaven is my Finest Joy.”

How would you answer the question regarding your Finest Treasure, Finest Possession, Finest Friend and Finest Joy? Let’s get a dialogue started on your questions, thoughts and concepts about “happiness.” Who knows? . . . Maybe Winston-Crown Publishing House would like to tackle a new project on the subject of “Happiness.” Let’s share some ideas.

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson.

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement:mailto:press@winstoncrown.com 

images: Drs. James W. and AnnaMarie Jackson

Take vs. Give

by Dr. James W. Jackson
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

Following the collapse of the old Soviet Union, Project C.U.R.E. was pulled into the rescue and rehabilitation of the health care systems of the bankrupt Soviet. After assessing the hospitals, clinics and practices, we immediately began pouring in millions of dollars worth of donated medical goods from the US. We started with the corridor stretching from St. Petersburg to Moscow, but eventually shipped into the remaining republics. 

By 1998, I had worked my way to Tbilisi, the capital of the Republic of Georgia. While there, I traveled about forty miles north to the city of Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, where I met with city officials and medical directors. Throughout Georgia, the discouraged leaders were crying out for businessmen and leaders from the West to come and to teach them the ways of free market enterprise and entrepreneurial concepts. But, sadly, no one showed up in the old Soviet to help educate them, even though they were so open to new options of capitalism and the free market.

When I returned to Tbilisi, I was invited by the university to speak to all their graduate students. “Dr. Jackson, we want you to tell us about Project C.U.R.E., and humanitarians, and free market capitalism.” I jumped at the chance. The auditorium was packed with students and professors.

When I approached the podium I announced my lecture subject, “I want to talk to you today about the ‘Economics of Compassion.’” In my presentation I explained that in the mid-1700s Adam Smith, a Scottish economist, proposed economic theories of freedom of choice, economic growth, division of labor, free market movement, self-determination and minimal government intervention.

About 100 years later Karl Marx said Adam Smith was wrong. In order for a society to be successful, Marx held that the economy needed to be controlled at the top by the Politburo and subsequently determined by intelligent people who knew what was best for the society. The only fair thing, according to Marx, was to take away from those who “have” and redistribute to those who “have not,” then there would be peace and equality. The economic experiment of Lenin, Marx, and Trotsky was even further complicated by Stalin’s insistence that aggravation of the class struggle was mandatory, and that political repression was necessary.

The Marxian model touted that the element of compassion was at the center of the philosophy. “We will overthrow the Czars, grab their wealth and equally divide it amongst the peasants.” But the driving force behind the philosophy was not compassion but control. It was not designed that everyone should be equal, because it would be the Politburo’s elite who would be in control and decide just who would be equal and just how equal each would be.

I went on to explain that the operative word in the whole scheme was the word “take.” “Take from those who have and distribute to those who have not.” The moral and emotional basis for the word “take” is a whole world apart from that of “give.” When “take” is employed, the spirit of “give” is trampled, compassion is thwarted and it is presumed that any “care- giving” activity is the responsibility of the state. The recipients of the “give” soon become entitled, addicted and controlled by the handouts of the Politburo. There certainly was no compassion in the word “take.” Words like concern, compunction, benevolence or compassion had to become foreign ideas.

Toward the end of my talk, I shared how free market enterprise had encouraged me to become a compassionate capitalist with the opportunities to help millions of needy people all over the world through humanitarian acts of kindness. “Your greatest fulfillment while living will be realized through your voluntary giving.”

I encouraged the listeners to cultivate kindness and personal compassion. “As you face new opportunities of freedom, you can now experiment with new financial and political concepts. Determine, as you earn and accumulate your wealth in the future, that your motivation will be the compassionate acts of kindness to others. But don’t allow the government to steal the compassion from your soul as it arbitrarily takes your earnings from your purse. Cultivate this concept and your beloved country of Georgia will blossom like a rose in a fertile garden.” Professors and students rose to their feet as one. All their lives they had experienced the debilitating phenomenon of being “taken.”

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson.

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement:mailto:press@winstoncrown.com 

images: Drs. James W. and AnnaMarie Jackson

What Would It Take?

by Dr. James W. Jackson
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

During the thirty years I have traveled internationally, I traveled literally millions of miles to more than 150 countries and became very familiar with not only all types and shapes of aircraft, but, also, all types and shapes of travelers. Since the cabins had become my adopted abode, I was tempted upon occasion to Velcro my family pictures to the plastic walls just to help me feel at home. I even learned to enjoy the company of my flying sojourners.

I boarded a morning flight out of Frankfurt and headed for Colorado. Sheri wanted to know if my travels originated in Frankfurt. I asked if her flight to Dulles meant Washington, D.C. was her final destination. She said her company sent her to Germany quite often, and she enjoyed traveling because she liked to observe all the people. Then she asked me, “Where is your favorite place in the whole world?” I responded, “There is a 25 acre spot in Colorado on a crystal clear mountain stream and blanketed with majestic trees. A romantic fire crackles in the gigantic fire place of the old log and stone house. “Wow,” blurted Sheri, “Have you been there on vacation?” “No, I live there every day when I am not constrained by this seat belt!

“Sheri, you said that you enjoy observing people as you travel, what have you observed so far on this trip?” “The thing that impressed me this morning at the airport,” Sheri confided, “was the high percentage of folks who looked terribly unhappy . . . and I suppose I looked as disgruntled as the rest of them. Except for this pleasant conversation, my own life is sort of bummed. It’s beginning to dawn on me that I am running faster and faster, chasing something that I can’t really identify. For certain, I’m not catching whatever it is I’m running after.”

“Is it possible,” I asked, “that someone or something, or perhaps the entire culture, has instructed all of us that we should be in hot pursuit everyday and spend our energy to the last dregs in order to lay hold of whatever it is that we are all supposed to be chasing?” I went on, “Sheri, don’t answer this unless you feel comfortable doing so. “What was it that made you get up this morning and go through the hassle and security procedures to get on this flight?” She studied her hands that were folded in her lap and pensively mumbled something about “economic security” and “happiness.”

“This is none of my business,” I replied, “But I am very curious, just how much economic security would it take to make you really happy?” Her reply came surprisingly quickly, “About twice as much as I am presently making!” Then she grinned sheepishly. “Yea, I think more money, about twice as much, would give me a good shot at personal security. That would be enough to make me happy!” The captain came on the intercom with some announcements, and we put a bookmark in our conversation. But Sheri was not through talking.

“You know something?” Sheri asked, “It just hit me. I am presently making twice as much as I was making two years ago and now I am back into the same emotional cycle, saying the same things over again, ‘I need about twice as much as I am making to make me secure and happy.’Who keeps moving the bar up on the high-jump standards?” We laughed together.

“Sheri,” I continued, “just one more question from a fellow traveler . . . If money were not the issue, what would your list look like that would really make you happy?” “I want to feel worthwhile,” she confided. “I would want to be involved in some worthwhile things. I would want to personally enjoy some love, some fun, some friendship and respect from my family and a few other people. And, I guess, I would like to leave some kind of legacy when I am gone.

"Then Sheri said something absolutely brilliant, “You know, none of those things I just listed is available on the open market or e-bay. Therefore, I guess, if something isn’t priced on the market, then you can’t buy it. And if you can’t buy it with money, then, just possessing twice as much of the stuff called ‘money’ perhaps is not the answer. I guess I’ve been looking for happiness in the wrong places! What a wonderful observation I have made today!”

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson.

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com 

images: Drs. James W. and AnnaMarie Jackson

When Are You Strongest?

by Dr. James W. Jackson
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

I began traveling to Chiang Mai, Thailand, with my Burmese friend, Daniel Kalnin, in 1996. Earlier, he had flown to Denver to ask me to help him with his "Barefoot Doctors" program. "We are training village people from the closed country of Burma," he explained. "We instruct them in basic health care procedures in Chiang Mai, then, send them back into their hill-tribe villages. They return as the only 'doctors' in their areas. I don't have any medical goods to send back with them, and I also need help in training them."
 
Both the man and his story had intrigued me. He was a quiet, dignified Asian in his 50s. His request was straight forward, his urgency and sincerity compelling. I knew that most of the universities and institutions had been closed in Burma, now called "Myanmar," because the paranoid new government had feared the possibility of insurgency on the campuses.

The training process stretched over a 3-year period. Those chosen by their villages to be trained walked out of Burma, usually illegally, and crossed into Thailand and stayed for one month in each of the three years. It would sometimes take three weeks for them to make the journey on foot. The term, "Barefoot Doctors" described well the picture of the simple Burmese villagers walking barefoot among their people caring for the sick and injured.

The first time I visited one of the "Barefoot Doctors" training sessions in Chiang Mai, there were 21 candidates enrolled. Following the training sessions and dinner, I would encourage them to tell me about themselves and their experiences. They all told me how inadequate they felt as they traveled back home knowing they were the only ones in their villages with any medical or emergency information. Everyone looked to them for help. But they also shared that when they received a call for help there was a certain power and confidence that came over them as they faced the emergency.

One woman told me how God had helped her understand how to fabricate an IV- starting device and get some sterile water into a dying boy's body while the entire village looked on. The boy lived, to the astonishment of everyone.

Another lady cried as she told me that the previous year she had returned to her village after having received two of the three annual training courses. "I was called in the night to the home of my dearest childhood friend. She was very sick. I had enough training to determine that she was having a severe appendicitis attack. But I had never done any procedure such as that. My friend begged me to help her. I knew if I did not do something she would surely die.

"Then the lady explained, "I went into another dark room. I prayed to God and raised my hands up toward Him and told Him that I didn't know what to do with my hands and mind, but I didn't want my dear friend to die. I was the only person who knew anything about medical things. We put my friend on her kitchen table and I began the procedure. I was able to perform the procedure and my friend is alive today. It was a miracle!" 

As that precious hill-tribe Burmese lady shared her story with me that night, I remembered a quote from Pope Paul VI, "Nothing makes one feel so strong as a call for help." She had heard the call for help. She was emboldened enough to ask God to help her in an impossible situation, and God made her strong in her weakness so that she could successfully respond to the incomprehensible challenge.

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson.

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com 

images: Drs. James W. and AnnaMarie Jackson

The Eternal Goad

by Dr. James W. Jackson
Author, The Happiest Man in the World: Life Lessons from a Cultural Economist

Haiti’s squalor, poverty and chaotic governance lay naked for the whole world to see, following Haiti’s recent epic earthquake disaster. No one could look away and ignore the failed social and economic experiment. Something was wrong . . . and had been wrong for a long time. Of course, I had tears of gratitude in my eyes as I scanned the media coverage and watched the millions of dollars worth of medical goods donated by Project C.U.R.E. being flown from the decks of US Navy ships by Navy helicopters directly to the front lines of the terrible disaster. But our determination to help Haiti did not just start with the recent earthquake.

In 1996, I had been summoned to Port-au-Prince to assess the local hospitals and arrange for donated medical goods to be delivered from our US warehouses. Of Haiti’s 7 million people, 4.5 million were children. Fifteen out of every 1,000 children died from malnutrition, dehydration, infection and HIV Aids. Dr. Frank Thomas, director of the central hospital, accompanied me on the assessment study. We walked through stuffy passageways, ducking into large open wards crowded with sick and dying people. The tumult and turmoil was reminiscent of war hospital scenes from Gone with the Wind or Dr. Zhivago. There was no such thing as privacy and one person's groans or screams were piled upon everyone else's misery.

As Dr. Thomas and I walked along one of the outside walls of the children’s ward, we passed a closed door. Through the door I could hear the screams and wailing of some tormented soul. I nudged Dr. Thomas with my elbow and winked as I asked, “Psych ward through there?” He stopped in his tracks and opened the door to the outside. The sun had not yet burned the jungle mist from the Haitian morning. At the foot of the stairway was a very young woman kneeling in the moist soil. Her face and hair were a mess. I could tell she had been lying face down in the mud, and the tears had washed down through the dirty face and had fallen on her starched white blouse. The noise she was emitting was not crying. She would raise herself out of the mud and begin with a low guttural moan. As she straightened up, the wailing would crescendo into an agonizing scream . . . then sobs, so deep she could have been vomiting.

Dr. Thomas took hold of my arm and pointed back through the doorway and into the children’s ward. “Look over there where all the babies are lined up lying on that long wooden plank.” I looked across the large room and saw, perhaps, ten babies lying side by side. At either end of the plank was an IV station with a baby tethered to an infusion tube that was connected to a bag of saline hanging from a rusty IV pole. “We have only two infusion stations for the dehydrated babies. They must wait in that line until it is their turn. That young mother’s baby could not wait long enough to receive the infusion. He just died and they wrapped him in a towel and carried him away. This young mother intuitively knows her precious baby didn’t need to die.”

I looked away from the room and back out at the tormented young mother. At that moment I could not move. I felt her grief start in the back of my head, down over my shoulders through my thorax and into my abdominal area, across the fronts of my thighs and into my shins. I didn’t just feel sorry for her . . . I didn’t just feel compassion toward her . . . at that moment, I owned her grief!

After a bit, I could walk again and Dr. Thomas and I moved back into the hospital and gently closed the door. In my warehouses in the US I had thousands of IV stations and thousands of bags of saline solution! Sympathy and compassion were not enough; I had spiritually become engaged.

The grief and compassion that I had experienced was not guilt . . . but it was a goad. I had been prodded by eternity. From that time on, I would endeavor not to stumble, not to take my ease, but to press on, to push to the desperate locations where the need would not wait for my own convenience. I would endeavor with all my heart to arrive in time in the future so that it would not be necessary for the precious young mother to fall in the mud of Haiti, weeping for her lost child.

No wonder I was so happy to see those US Navy ships unloading millions of dollars worth of Project C.U.R.E. donations into Port-au-Prince!

Dr. James W. Jackson often describes himself as "The Happiest Man in the World." A successful businessman, award-winning author and humanitarian, Jackson is also a renowned Cultural Economist and international consultant, helping organizations and governments to apply sound economic principals to the transformation of culture so that everyone is "better off."

As the founder of Project C.U.R.E., Dr. Jackson traveled to more than one hundred fifty countries assessing healthcare facilities, meeting with government leaders and "delivering health and hope" in the form of medical supplies and equipment to the world's most needy people. Literally thousands of people are alive today as a direct result of the tireless efforts of Project C.U.R.E.'s staff, volunteers and Dr. Jackson.

To contact Dr. Jackson, or to book him for an interview or speaking engagement: press@winstoncrown.com 

images: Drs. James W. and AnnaMarie Jackson