Its an odd feeling when I’m sitting in my car waiting for the stoplight to turn green and just in front of me I’m watching a gas station employee put up the new price for a gallon of gas. It feels like being a little girl again sitting helplessly as somebody takes the change from my piggy bank. The only issue is, I’m sitting amongst 100 other cars with all the drivers watching the same thing. And when the light turns green, we all push our gas pedals and listen as the sound of our acceleration turns into the “cha-ching” of an olde timey cash register and we all just continue driving. I envisioned as the ring of the register faded in my ears, all of us turning off our engines, getting out of our cars and staring as the man somberly took down the 4 and replaced it with a 5… slo-motion and very epic, like an M. Night Shyamalan film.
The feeling hit me again a few moments later. I was in need of a few of those thin plastic garment bags you get from the cleaners when they finish dry-cleaning your shirts. I went to the first mom and pop cleaner I could find and asked for 2 bags. Pop gets them for me and tells me its $2.00. I joke, “Two bucks? You’re killing me here!” as I’m handing him the quarters. Pop apologetically explains, “The gas prices, they go up. The gas prices…”. Yeah, I know. Why do you think I’ve only got quarters to use?
It’s not so much the gas prices or the economy or any of that. I’m struck by my feelings of being stuck, the inability to create and further positive change. I’m the product of youth rally’s and summer camps that encouraged us to be history makers and world changers. Much of my parents generation have been the ones to host such events for us only to tell us when we get home that we should stay safe and keep our heads on our shoulders. It was a confusing time in life. Not that it’s much better now. In what world do our dreams become realities? In what lifetime does our plan for World Aid actually come to fruition? And in what mind-frame do I need to be in to not let my frustrations of my “normal” life side track me from my calling for life?
The predictable reality is that only if we all decide together to be history makers and world changers is the world ever going to change. And, if I get so hampered by the changing of the U.S. economy and the fight over oil, I am never going to join any group of people for long enough to see that change I so desire.
The truth is, we have to live fearlessly. We have to shake the dust off our feet and run toward whatever it is that we are passionate about. If enough of us run in the same direction, the world will be redesigned.
