Collisions

It is an inspirational essay for young people as well as anyone who wishes to be inspired.

Sitting here, a 17 year old girl and I wonder how I can change the world. I wonder how an individual can create a collision that will have an impact with such magnitude that it will alter the course of a lifetime. I wonder how a single person can form something that will be eternal �" a legacy different from any other before. I wonder how at 17 there are countless opportunities but I’m hesitant, waiting for the one opportunity that everyone dreams of, while other opportunities just pass me by.

I wonder how the Greats �" Andy Warhol, MLK, Beethoven, Mozart, FDR, the list goes on �" were able to change the way people thought and dared to open up our hearts, our minds, and our ears to the impeccable world in which we live and the astounding beauty that we are surrounded by each and every day to move us to change a nation and to change a world. They showed us that with the suffering each of us must go through comes a fragile beauty unlike any other. They showed us that all that we take for granted, all that is both good and evil, all that we overlook while we are too busy focusing on what it is each of us aspires to be, we are missing what is important: that our actions have impacts, and those impacts are what could potentially alter the course of a life, or many lives, or a nation, or a world. Those impacts are what define us, what drive us to push past the limits of what is and what could be and create something beautiful in a way that maybe none of us completely understand.

 We are a world united but separated by obstacles few dare to breach. We differ by name, by look, by action, but not by mind, heart, or body. Although we are all different, it seems as though in many ways we are the same, in many ways we are united. We each form relationships that branch from the same feelings, the same desires, and to create something beautiful, but in doing so we cause impact. We change something that could alter lives.

 As individuals we are born to be great. As individuals we were born to find what for we are all meant. We were born for a purpose greater than our own and that is what we are eternally taught. We are taught to create, to love, to aspire, to desire, to feel. We are taught that all that we do and are is for an eternal, unattainable goal in which we are all so desperately trying to reach. We are taught that we matter; we are taught that we, as an individual, can change history. But how? At 17 I wonder, how is this possible? To create a legacy that lasts longer than a lifetime seems an impossible goal, but then again with people like Einstein, Newton, Rutherford, and many other notable thinkers we see that it is in fact possible. This small chance, this slim hope that one in seven billion is unique enough to cause a collision to change the fate of a world, of this world, is something that many of us overlook, but I choose at 17 to believe that I can in fact change the world.