Martin Luther King Jr. once said “ Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.” This is why I plan on serving, no matter the circumstance. I may not have a college degree (yet) and usually my subject and verb agree, but nonetheless, I want to serve.
It wasn’t a single moment or experience, but many little moments that began to add up and eventually sparked something inside of me that I wasn’t able to forget. On my trip to Italy last summer, I was exposed to 30 other people from around the world. I met thinkers and doers who fueled movements in their own corners of the world. this was a shock because I had only existed in a small circle until then. I realized that there is, in fact, a world outside of Texas (a pretty big one actually). My perspective on the world changed after those 2 weeks and it sparked a deep curiosity. That’s the “thing” that enabled me to look at other people’s ideas, research endless topics and watch hours of TED talks. It was curiosity. I wanted to know the truth about far away places. The ones we only see on the internet, or in magazines. I knew there were issues around the world but I wanted to know more. I started with India and researched what the people, culture, government, infrastructure, etc. were like there. I discovered how people barely exist in such horrible conditions. It continued for Cambodia, Guatemala, then Africa, and so on around the world. I discovered the truth about these places and at first, I honestly became mad that such evil existed in the world and I didn’t even know about it. I managed to turn that anger into motivation which even further enhanced my research. It was a ripple effect. I wanted to know more, so I found out.
At one point it occurred to me that I, a teenage girl living in a small town in east Texas, can do something about this. There have been many “movements” to end world poverty and I know they have helped in many ways, but the problem still exists.
Despite my small shoe size, I am going to change the world by altering the lives of others in one way or another with a “heart full of grace” and “a soul generated by love.”