DAY 81 – A MINDSET FOR A BETTER FUTURE

Every summer I spend a month at my grandparents’ house. After dinner for the entire month we go out onto their porch and sit there watching people walk by and drive their cars past their home. Each night we become spectators to what other people are doing and not active participants in doing different things in life.

One night on the porch we started to talk about where people are going and what they will be doing. We speculated that some people in their cars may be coming home after work or going to the store. We thought that the kids we saw riding by on their bicycles could be going to their friends house or to a field to play. We saw an ambulance rushing by with its siren on and we knew they had to be going to aid a person in distress or taking someone to the hospital.

After the month was over and I went back home to my parents I started to think about how some people do things and others are more of a spectator, like my grandparents, to what is happening in the world. One of my teachers in high school who is in her sixties is very active and contributes a lot of her time to help people in need. She is constantly working with a non-profit organization that comes to the aid of the homeless. She also helps in a community garden that gives free fruits and vegetables to the poor. Every summer she spends two weeks planting trees in areas that have been devastated by fires. My teacher is an active participant in helping to make this a better world.

One of the things I have learned from my teacher is not to leave it up to other people to become involved in helping our fellow human beings. She tells us little gets accomplished when we find a reason why we can’t be helpful but when we look at life from the perspective of how much good will come from our efforts we give of ourselves more freely. She inspires us to do good and be agents for a better future.

The difference between my grandparents being spectators to what others are doing and my teacher’s active and helpful activities is in the different mindset each one has. A few years ago I had a conversation with my grandparents that made me believe they do not think they can do much to change their own lives let alone the world. They told me that they are getting older with their health not as good as it used to be and nothing will change that. They watch the news and see the horrors of war and the poverty that engulfs a segment of humanity and do not see how it could change. They have lost hope for a better tomorrow and without a mindset that they can positively affect their own lives and can make a difference in the lives of other people they sit idly by and are passive spectators to what is possible.

Thinking about the contrary beliefs and lifestyles between my grandparents and my teacher I now realize that I will no longer just sit on the sidelines and let whatever occurs to be my mindset. From now on I will be an active participant in creating a better life for myself and actively engaged in creating a better world wherever I can.