Early tonight I was in a video call with some friends and two of my Catholic friends were raving about a Ted Talk they had just watched from Pope Francis. As they were describing it, I was remembered of the “Impossible” reading that I had just completed for class. Upon finishing the video call, I went and watched the Ted Talk.

The Ted Talk is titled “Why the only future worth building includes everyone” and it is essentially the Pope kicking off a Ted Talk convention called “The Future You” in 2017. His talk revolves around the importance of recognizing others and everything they do in order to build the future that people deserve. He talks mainly of the connections that are needed to build this future.

The first connection to leadership that I made in watching this Ted Talk was, like I said, to the “Impossible” reading. Specifically, I saw a relation between the talk and the section where Goska is referring to two jobs that she has worked within her lifetime. In one, she worked as a humanitarian and in the other, as a nurse caring for the old. She noted that when she tells people of these jobs, she is greeted to two very different reactions. With the first, the people that she is explaining the job to see her as virtuous. They see her work as worthwhile because of the larger impact that she was making. Meanwhile, when Goska describes the second job, people see her as a working-class individual. They do not see the impact that she was making on all the people that she cared for. In seeing the difference behind reactions to the two jobs, one can see that those that work the second jobs, or others that are deemed to be on the same caliber, are not recognized by people the way that they need to be to build the future that Pope Francis is talking about. However, Goska, like Pope Francis, argues that people and their contributions need to be recognized at every level because everyone is making an impact in what they do, even if the impact only affects one person.

Further, Pope Francis heavily discusses the need for connections between individuals. People need to be connected to build the future that he envisions. This strongly relates to a section on community that my Justice and Civil Society class did earlier this year. In the section, we discussed how social capital creates a strong sense of community. When people feel as though they are a part of a community, they are more supportive of social welfare actions that benefit members of their community. In make these connections that Pope Francis argues for that include everyone, people will feel connected across the world. The connection will help to create a society, a future that includes everyone.