What does it mean to act?

Give a dollar to a favorite cause? Speak your mind? Develop an opinion? Give a speech?

To different people, action had a million definitions. The important thing is to pick one of those definitions and apply it to yourself. It isn't enough to be sentimental about a disaster or to write in your diary how terribly frustrated you are with the world. In some way. In some form. Just DO something.

We always talk to each other about the great things we are going to do with our lives after high school. Since kindergarten, we were the class that would save the world, stop global warming, and finish our homework all in time to watch our favorite TV shows. I'm not saying those dreams are no longer applicable or even reasonable. But those dreams aren't worth anything sitting in our heads. And those dreams are worth so much more than that.

To act is not an easy thing. It involves skill, education, and a WHOLE lot of confidence. It requires self-sacrifice and sometimes embarrassment. You must be willing to give yourself to a cause, risk your reputation for something you know is right. Be confident of the unknown and have thick skin.

The ability to act indicates maturity.

We are stuck in an awkward place. We want to make a difference in the world but don't know how. The tool we are given is college but we don't know where to go. They throw the world and all it's messes into our hands without us even wanting to leave the secure, small world of Arcadia. Bummer.

We cannot feign ignorance anymore. We are all going to be adults. Adults with more responsibility than just being a good student and doing the laundry. We now have responsibility for humanity.

Don't want that job? Too bad. We don't have a choice. We can continue to just let the genocides continue OR actively try to stop them from occurring. We can increase the number of the homeless and hungry, OR we can go to a food bank and volunteer our time. We can continue to melt the polar ice caps, OR we can petition for alternate fuels. There is no such thing as middle ground or innocent bystanders. We are either the cause OR the solution. We can no longer feign ignorance.

See no evil. Speak no evil. Hear no evil. What a load of bull.

So what will you choose?

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

Albert Einstein

-Jenna

But while there’s moonlight and music and love and romance, Let’s face the music and dance.

-Irving Berlin

Ready.

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Edit:

After today, I guess I'm not over it yet