Whodda thought?

As a child, people would ask me what I wanted to do when I grow up. My answer was always the same, "I'm going to save the world". The response was also always the same idea, "Good for you", "How mature of you", "Such a noble cause", "I'm so proud of you".

Then, around the age of 17, the responses began to change. They went from being proud to giving me the "You'll grow out of it", "You can't make a difference in the world" and they're faces would give off the 'she's delusional' attitude.

I didn't care what they thought; I knew that I was going to save the world. Then one day in college, I read a quote, which I couldn't tell you if my life depended on it but generally stated that it wasn't the grand ambitions of saving the whole world that made a difference, but the small actions of helping the world around you (i.e. ripple makes a wave). I took that statement to heart.

My goal never changed. I want to make this world a better place, and I am willing to dedicate my life to this cause. What did change was my way of achieving my goal. I know that I can't get rid of nukes, stop global warming, end starvation, terrorism, hate, etc, single handedly. What I do know is that I can help to make the world around me, my little world, a better place. I also know that my actions, in effect, will make a difference in ways that I will probably never know, nor do I really care to.

I have spent my entire life trying to help in any way possible, whether with a single person, school, city state, or country. To some of my actions I have seen the fruit, to others, I haven't (not to say there wasn't, I just didn't see it). If I had listened to the overt and underlying messages of just about every person I spoke with, if I had taken them seriously, I don't know what the world I live in would be like today. What I do know is that I would be a lot less happy…and a lot more like the way that society attempted to mold me.

I'm not saying fight the power, I'm saying believe in yourself, not what others tell you that you are and should be. If not, you will never be satisfied and the world would have a very hard time being a better place (It can't do it alone, you know…).