Changing the World....for the young?

Work has been particularly grueling and draining the past couple of weeks. I've had to remind myself on a number of occasions that I am working towards a good cause, one that I care about and want to see succeed.

I have also been contemplating the fact that so many of the people I work with are incredibly young. Why is that?

One reason for this is offered in the movie Amazing Grace:

William Wilberforce: No one of our age has ever taken power.

Pitt the Younger: Which is why we're too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway.

Is it that the young just do the impossible because they don't believe it is impossible? Or that they haven't gotten practical or cynical (or both...) yet?

I don't know, but this also made me think of some lyrics from the musical, Newsies. A young journalist is commenting on her faith in herself and the ability to do things that no one has done before.

But give me some time, I'll be twice as good as that six months from never.

Just look around at the world we're inheriting

and think of the one we'll create.

Their mistake is they got old, that is not a mistake we'll be making.

No sir, we'll stay young forever!

Give those kids and me the brand new century and watch what happens.

It's David and Goliath do or die

the fight is on and I can't watch what happens.

But all I know is nothing happens if you just give in.

It can't be any worse than how it's been.

And it just so happens that we just might win,

so whatever happens! Let's begin!

     -Watch What Happens, from Newsies, the Musical

While no one can actually avoid the mistake of getting older, I feel that all of us would benefit from adopting more of an attitude that "nothing happens if you just give in...and it just so happens that we just might win, so whatever happens! Let's begin!"

And, it seems to me, that the more important part might be to keep going. Beginning is one thing, but enduring and pushing on when things get hard or take longer than we anticipated is quite another. A passage from a novel I'm reading right now captures what I'm trying to express very well:

"Apparently he was brooding on the magnitude of the task ahead and questioning his ability to carry it out. The job would never be finished, not in his lifetime at least; there was too much to be done. That's true of a lot of things, though, including the achievement of social justice, universal peace, and a world in which there are no hungry children. It's no excuse to stop working towards those ends."

         -Night Train to Memphis by Elizabeth Peters

It seems to me that most things worth doing will not be accomplished in any one person's lifetime. Those tasks are hard, and so often require personal sacrifice. But they are worth working towards. It makes me wonder if part of what happens is that people start to focus on the small part of the puzzle they can impact. They raise their children with love. They reach out to their neighbor in kindness. They live a quiet, good life. Does everyone do that? No. But I think an awful lot of people do, and their cumulative acts of goodness make this world a pretty wonderful place.