World Changer

What is your purpose in life? Whatever it may be, I assume it has something to do with making a difference. Making a difference in your community, in your school, in your home, but nonetheless, making a change. That is why I want to be a world changer--a person who dedicates much time and effort in changing the world one person and one soul at a time. That may come in the form of sponsoring an orphan through World Vision or Compassion, volunteering at a church soup kitchen to feed the homeless or the hungry in your town, volunteering at hospitals to feed encouraging words who are whispered negative comments all day long, or spending time with someone at your school--someone is labelled the outcast, the loner, the lonely people who don't have a voice. We are all created to change the world and whether we are oblivious to our potential, the truth is that we simply don't employ the potential we to change and rather, we shift our focus to less imperative matters, such as faking your hair and teeth so the school quarterback (who impregnated a girl last fall but you don't believe that) finds interest in you or ruin people's lives because the sadness and disappointments and anger of others somehow quiets and mutes your own tumultuous life. Rather than paying attention to trivial things like fitting in or finding the right words to fit in, think of other people. You are just one of the several billion people on this planet who have needs. If you give up part of your time and open your heart to those who are in greater need, you may be surprised to learn that you are impacting someone's life simply by not only being involved in that person's life but also by spending quality time with him/her, laughing, sharing, and preparing food. If you are volunteering at a church soup kitchen, look around and gaze at the people who come. Do you wonder how they came to be without a home, without food or water, or without a purpose? Perhaps that person suffered unimaginable loss and refused to live. Perhaps that person came from an abusive environment and the only exit was to live as a nomad. It doesn't matter how they came to this place; all that matters is that you have the opportunity to change that person's life. If you sit down beside, let's say, a seventeen-year-old girl or a young mother with her children, greet them with a smile. Then, after spending more time with them and familiarizing yourself with her or her children, you are in their hearts. Through your generosity and thoughtfulness, you find a place, a safe haven, for the girl or single mother. You provide a safe, warm shelter for them to grow. It may be your basement, an abandoned hospital, or whatever, but you seized the opportunity and you gave a hopeless person a future. Then, after talking with them afterward, they share that if it weren't for you and your help, they wouldn't have made it. Perhaps they contemplated suicide, or worse, trafficking to make ends meet. You gave someone a purpose to live, a reason to smile, the decision to live life. If you remained in your comfort zone and that person would have gone under your radar, who knows where they would be, but the fact that their change in circumstance is on account of you, the sense of hope you had given is immeasurable. Perhaps you see someone in your school with her head down, who doesn't speak, and is often seen alone. You sit down at her table (where she would otherwise be unaccompanied) and smile genuinely at her. Maybe your first interaction seems like it's lacking progress, but the second, third, or fourth time you sit at her table and start talking with her, she begins to open up. Then she becomes your friend. Then, she attends all your social gathering. Afterward, she is seen laughing and smiling. Years go by and she confides deeply in you that had you not befriended her, she would not be alive today. You are adding years to a person's life simply by just being her friend. Say that you sponsor a child in Africa or Asia by giving $30 a month (that's the price of 6 coffees at Starbucks). You sponsor him or her for a year, then 5 years, then 10 years. In an unprecedented affair, you meet face-to-face with your sponsored child and he or she tells you that if it weren't for you, that grown up child wouldn't be alive today or if alive, barely living in the streets, involved in gangs, etc. It is because of you that that person has hope, a purpose, and a future. Do you marvel at the repercussions of an act of kindness? Don't, because a simple act of kindness can change the world. Perhaps not the total world's population overnight, but through that person that you helped, counselled, and befriended, that person goes on and does the same to someone else, and so on and so on and so on. The cycle continues until it reaches hundreds of millions of people. Never question the power of a single act of kindness; it has the ability to change the world. And never question whether or not a single person can make a difference because it only takes one to start a change. I certainly aspire and want to make a change, thus pursuing opportunities that are too costly to give up. I want to make a change in this world. How about you?