I have hope

because I know that more people than I simply want to see others out of their pain.

It's an issue of our world, our common home, and the people in it. We are not as different from one another as we think. I always think about the fact that I could have been born someone else. And usually I think maybe it wouldn't be so bad, like when I meet someone with a hairier upper lip than me, but other days, like when I was in India and little girls tapped on my car window with desperate looks in their eyes, or when I watched the news and saw a man who had lost five members of his family to an earthquake of all random undeserved crises, I think, if that were me, what would make me keep going? How could I survive that? How could I survive even one death, let alone five?

Knowing that I could've been born as anyone in any situation gives me the will to fight for these people. What's crazy is that knowing about a problem and being able to combat it are two different things. I know of so many needs, but once I find just one thing I can do for one need, I will put all of myself into it. It's not like choosing subjects for school; you can't just spend 3 hours a week on the issue and have the problems fix themselves. I think sometimes it's kind of a curse for us as humans with access to media that alerts us to problems to see how much there is to do without realizing how much time it takes to accomplish one piece of one thing.

But knowing that people besides me  who want to solve these problems exist gets me excited about what I can really do and what everyone can do if there is focused will. There have already been thousands of donations toward the cause of helping the Haitian people, while the US, the UK and the Dominican Republic are doing what they can to help. And I feel that this will be the first of many steps to our world becoming a kinder place. Yes, there are many challenges to any kind of world-bettering operation; there are often huge negative ramifications to our attempts to turn the tables. But the fight is still worth fighting, and it will never be won with pessimism and apathy. I like to capitalize on the hope that we have because I know that it is this hope that will allow us to tread through these storms, rather than doubt.