“Now we see everything that’s going wrong with the world and those who lead it. We just feel like we don’t have the means to rise above and beat it…so we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change” – John Mayer (Waiting on the World to Change)
Do you ever get so caught up in the beat of a song that you pay absolutely no attention to the lyrics? It happens to me all the time. I will listen to a song for weeks without knowing one lyric in it. But when I finally sit down and listen to the lyrics I am bewildered at how I allowed myself to go so long without allowing such words to bless my soul. Recently I was listening to the iconic John Mayer song ‘Waiting on the World to Change’. Everybody knows the chorus, “so I’m waiting, waitinnnnn, waitin’ on the world to change”. I bet you just sang that in your head and not just because I typed it like I was singing it. However, this time I wasn’t just listening to the chorus and the beat. For once, I actually sat down and listened to the lyrics and I was bewildered at how indifferent I felt about such an iconic song, but the bewilderment (I don’t know why I’m using this word so much) was at how much a song written years ago is so relatable today.
Up until recently my generation has been seemingly waiting for opportunity and change to fall in our laps. I was one of them. Even today I see so many in my generation and the generation before me simply waiting for the tides to change. They’re waiting for this fictitious perfect moment to come around for them to grab their long awaited opportunities and desires. Key word here is fictitious as in not real. If you’re one of those people, I hate to break it to you (not really), but that perfect scenario at that perfect time is never going to come. However, I understand where you are coming from. We want to do something to better the world, our world, but are challenged by immense walls and glass ceilings and parties of opposition. We understand that the situation we are in is unfair, so we wait, we wait for our opponents to die off and our walls and glass ceiling of opposition to crumble. We wait until that “one day our generation is gonna rule the population,” but until then we keep waiting for the world to change.
I remember sitting up in my bed having full blown anxiety attacks thinking of the many walls that stand between me and my dreams. At the time they seemed so high that no ladder would help me get over them. Jack’s giant beanstalk wasn’t even tall enough to help me. So I just succumbed to the belief that there was nothing for me to do, I just had to wait for things to change and then I will grab my opportunity. So I waited and waited and it never came. I was getting frustrated and panic-stricken because I saw my dreams and desires but was getting older and they were getting no more reachable than before. I gave up waiting and decided to change MY world instead. So I took a shot in the dark and applied to a college I hardly met the requirements to enter and I was accepted (surprisingly). Then I took another shot in the dark and chose a major. One thing after another my world was changing. Funnily enough, the more my world seemed to change the lower those walls seemed to be. For the first time I realized it wasn’t me waiting for the world to change, it was the world waiting for me to change.
Recently, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. The Paris Climate Agreement, in a very condensed description, is an international network of roughly 195 global leaders and their governments that made a pact or pledge to take action against pollution and global warming. President Trump’s decision to back out of the agreement is a rebuke to heads of state, climate activists and Mother Nature herself. Millions were appalled at Mr. Trump’s decision but accepted the notion because they don’t feel they have the means to rise above and trump Drumpf. However, a number of states acted independently and formed the United States Climate Alliance, a coalition that will uphold the Paris Climate Agreement and take aggressive action on climate change regardless of what the federal government will or will not do. Such states understand that if they wait on the world or President Trump to change, the world will die, so they took change upon themselves. They understand that though the system may be hard to beat it doesn’t mean they have to stand at a distance, they can use the resources they have to change their world, which inevitably aides in changing the world.
Even more recent, Nabra Hassanen of Fairfax, Virginia was beaten and killed by Darwin Martinez Torres simply because she was Muslim. This horrible incident is unfortunately one of many hate crimes that have taken place in the United States as of recent. Since the beginning of 2017 there has been a dramatic spike in Xenophobic and anti-Islam hate crimes that have taken place not just in the United States, but throughout the globe. Hate and fear has become all too normal in our society. If we wait for the world to change, the hate and fear will just continue to escalate. If we wait for change Nabra’s death will go in vain as will many others who have been slain and will be slain. There is no time to wait for the world to change.
I understand that I can’t change the world all by myself, but I can change my world. By changing my world I just got the world a step closer to the change I want it to see. I refuse to sit around and allow Nabra’s death to go in vain, I refuse to sit around and watch the sea levels rise and the atmosphere become even more poisoned than it already is. That is why I stopped waiting and started doing because the world needs me. The world needs us, united, in the name of peace, prosperity, respect towards others and respect towards our Mother Earth. I encourage you to join me by changing your world. If we all change our personal worlds, the world will have no choice but to change. The world is waiting for us as a society to change so that it can change. Those walls will crumble and those glass ceilings will shatter the more we change our world.
I’m tired of waiting and I hope you are too. Let’s, as one body, jump in and change this world for the better.
dco0per 