So, You Want to Change the World?

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When I was little, I dreamed of being a superhero. I could never figure out what my name would be, nor could I ever decide on just one power, but I knew I wanted to be one. As I got older, that dream didn't really go away, thanks to Marvel, but it changed slightly: I didn't necessarily want to be a real life superhero (although if that happened I still wouldn't complain...) but I certainly wanted to play one onstage or onscreen. The shift had as much to do with my passions as it did with the way I viewed the world.
As I'm sure most people remember, when you're really young you see the world as utterly limitless. Nothing is impossible, and you are the sole star in your life. Your world is small, and so the earth seems small as well--changing the whole world is easy. By the time you've "grown up" (for these purposes, become a legal adult and left home for school) everything is different; your worldview is entirely different. You realize the list of things you don't know or cannot comprehend is never-ending, that there are people you cannot save from a dorm in Utah, and that while you may be the lead in your life, everyone is in their lives as well. I wanted to play a superhero in the hopes that by saving fictional characters, I could find a place and maybe, just maybe, change something for real, but it felt like a long shot. How can one person change the world?
Every person is going to have a different answer, and to be totally honest, my answer has and will continue to change. For now, I think my answer is a little cliched, but I believe it with everything in me. You do not change the world: you change yourself and maybe you can change yourself that others will change as well that it will be enough that you can create a ripple big enough that eventually the world becomes different. Whether we're ready to admit it or not, the world is shaped by us even if we feel like we are inconsequential. We are not merely cardboard cutouts moving through life. We make choices and those choices WILL affect other people, perhaps not all the time, but I would argue that it does most every time. There are 7.7 billion people in the world, according to the latest estimations, and so sure, by that view we are tiny and seemingly meaningless, but that is far from true. We do impact the world, both positively and negatively.
Because of that, I no longer want to save the world. That is not my job, and it could never be. My goal is not to change the world, and it's not even to change people. Instead, I want to change myself. Yes, that's not a great or poetic answer, yes it's pretty much what everyone says that they want, but deciding this means something to me. I have spent so much of my life being worried about how my life impacts others. I have made so many choices based on other people's needs and desires and that's fine, I still want to lead a life of service, but I never made those choices for the right reasons. I didn't make choices to help people, I made choices so I wouldn't be a "problem," so I didn't take up space, so that at the end of my life I had left no footprints. Now, I want to change so that I help people because I want to help them. Not because I feel like I have to in order to make up for my many shortcomings, not because of anything that has to do with me--I want to help to help. I would like to be someone who is positive, but doesn't belittle or invalidate anyone's struggles. I would like to change and become more Christlike, and I would like to be someone who is able to be happy no matter what is happening.
Do you want to change the world? You cannot do it by going and conquering and leading a life where that is your motto: you cannot change the world if that is your goal. The world is not changed even when your endgame is changing other people. You change the world by changing yourself, by allowing yourself to grow and become different because that changes how you interact with others and the world. And that, my friend is what makes the world change.

(Originally Published at allthebestjess.wixsite.com/website on November 14th, 2018)

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