How Can I Change the World?

Last Monday, we celebrated the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That man knew a thing or two about answering today's question:

How Can I Change the World?

You may not one day have a national holiday in your honor, but I believe firmly in your ability to change the world, and your question indicates you just might believe the same thing. But you're not sure. You don't know how to go about this world-changing thing. You want a rubric, an instruction manual, a guidebook on changing the world.

And - of course - you already know what I'm going to say:

TOUGH.

There isn't one. There is no clear and uniform path to changing the world just as there is no clear and uniform path to becoming who you are meant to be in this world. In fact, those two things are related. Your world-changing must come from who you are. You can't expect to change anything unless you first find something you think is worth changing. And you have to recognize that the only way to change the world is to see yourself as part of the world and start the changing there.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent a lot of his life talking about and fighting for and believing in Justice. His most famous "I Have a Dream" speech makes lots of references to justice - "the bank of justice," "the bright day of justice," "the palace of justice," "justice [rolling] down like waters." But to get to the point of talking about justice, you have to first recognize the injustice. You know the difference between the whining "that's not fair" you've been doing about having to walk to class in the cold (gasp!) and that pit of the stomach punch that hits you when you see or hear or encounter something that is truly unfair. Those moments don't all have to be as big as racial discrimination (although they certainly still can be); they could be - yes, really - about how unfair it feels to pay for parking and never be able to find a parking spot. To be required to spend hundreds of dollars on texts your professor never uses. To have to pay an athletic fee even though you have no intention of ever attending an athletic event at UTC. These are relatively small injustices, but they are unjust all the same, and your steps to changing the world start with you identifying what really bothers you and making a real effort to change those things. Change your world and you will change the world. It's as simple as that.

And if you want my signature for a petition fighting back against any of the injustices, you feel free to ask. In the comments below or via email, let me know what you find unjust and how you plan to fix it. I will be your biggest cheerleader.

Cheers,

Dr. Y