As a follow-up to my piece last week about my FIFA World Cup volunteer experience, those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may remember that I have written twice before about the space between two small words: wishful and wistful. A children’s book introduced me to the distinction: Wishful means looking hopefully toward the future; wistful means longing tenderly for the past.
I first wrote about it after my son Ian’s bar mitzvah in 2016. Then again when he headed off to college in 2021. Now, here I am again.
The FIFA World Cup 2026 is over. My final volunteer shift at the Kansas City FIFA Fan Festival has come and gone. Lori Thomas, KC2026 Director of Volunteer Operations and Workforce, told us in that last gathering that what we were likely to feel was completely natural: a kind of post-event melancholy that follows something monumental. She was right. I felt it immediately.
And yet.
I am wistful, yes, for the hum of the crowd, for the strangers who became friends, for the electricity of watching the world convene on the lawn of the National WWI Museum and Memorial. I am wistful for the way Kansas City opened its arms and the world walked right in. I am wistful for every scan of a ticket, every photo taken, every “welcome to KC!” exchanged in a half-dozen languages (Sim, até consegui usar um pouco do meu português!).
But I am also, deeply, wishful. Wishful for the friendships just beginning to take root. Wishful for the next time I will step into something larger than myself and find my city, my community, my people waiting there.
Here is what I want to say to you: Do not wait for a FIFA World Cup. Volunteer for something. Serve as an ambassador. Show up for a cause, a community, an organization that calls to you. The experience of giving your time to something enormous has a way of giving something enormous back.
Three things worth remembering as you consider your next step:
- The wistfulness means it mattered. If you feel a little blue when it ends, that is not a sign that something went wrong. It is a sign that something went meaningfully right.
- The cycle continues. From wistful, we become wishful again. That is the gift. The next meaningful thing is already out there waiting.
- Service is connection. Every great experience I have described in these pages, from a bar mitzvah to a college send-off to a World Cup, has been, at its core, about being in relationship with others. Volunteer, and you will find yours.
Here’s to feeling wishful.
Happy Networking!