I wish I wasn’t 29. People always say that hindsight is 20/20, or that they wish they knew then what they know now. I don’t. I just wish I wasn’t 29. Not for the sake of being younger, but rather to be 21 again and be SURE that I could change the world.
I know, I know. Isn’t that what I am supposed to be out here doing? Changing the world?
I’m barely 1/3 of the way through this year, and already I’ve learned so many things about the world that can’t be unlearned or forgotten.
We started in the Philippines where I saw poverty like I’ve never seen before. People lived in ways that were beyond my imagination. In poverty, that despite the western influence over the country, is likely to persist for many years. We’ve been to China, a country that has so much to offer the world, but is so terrified of the potential power of their people; they suppress every bit of original thought, and anything that so much as whispers freedom is killed in an instant. In Africa, I’ve seen child after child with big, distended bellies, starving for the nutrients that will make them healthy. I’ve seen an elderly man lying in a hut, dying of Malaria because he couldn’t afford the ten-cents-a-day preventative. I’ve read about things like this before. But reading about it, and seeing it first-hand are very different.
I know that this is the smallest sliver of the pain and hurt in this world, and I know that I will see more in the next few months. I wish I wasn’t 29. I wish I was 21, with the rest of my twenties still in front of me. Because at that age, I remember KNOWING that I could organize people and funds and usher in change. I had all the energy in the world, and sleep was something older people did. But when I get back from this History/Anthropology/Theology lesson called The World Race, I will be 30.
30 and trying to sort out my new view of the world and how I can continue to make a difference. My team and I have talked about this a lot, about how we can keep living the World Race, even once we return to the US. And so far, we don’t have any answers. I’m not sure that anyone does. All I know, is that even after this short amount of time, I am forever changed.
