I’m lucky to spend 6th hour with my friend Nikki. Somehow, we ended up with the same plan period this semester. Since her room is used that hour, she comes over to my room and we talk while we work. Or some days, just talk. Today was one of those days.
It seems like a complete pileup of horrible things is surrounding us. Students with unimaginable problems. Poverty in our city. Homelessness. African genocide. Haitian deforestation. Not to mention the yahoos traipsing around the country fighting over who gets to run the joint for the next four years (and I mean yahoos from all sides of the aisle–I’m absolutely sick of all of them).
What. Is. The. Point.
That was my lamentation to Nikki today. Why bother? And why doesn’t the world end already?
I took my heavy heart to piano lessons, where I was encouraged by the progress these girls have made in the past three and a half years. Then I met my parents for dinner at a local restaurant that was hosting a fundraiser for the newspaper I advise. We get 20% of tonight’s take, and we need the funds badly, as we are in the hole with no end in sight.
I beat my parents to the restaurant, went inside, and the place wasn’t packed, but there was a group of students.
My students.
Some on newspaper staff, some not. But they were there. And my heart melted. The hopelessness I felt earlier in the day started to dissipate just a little. Because I saw good kids doing something good. And I know those kids will continue to do good, and even if it is only a handful of them, it’s something. And I don’t mean to say that the newspaper fundraiser was the most important thing they could have done today–it’s that they took the time in the first place. If they’ll take time for something as ordinary as a newspaper fundraiser, they will take time to help others in much greater need, I am certain.
They were there to help their friends tonight (and by default, me) and I felt a little bit better, that maybe not all is lost in this world. Yes, bad things will continue to happen, but even a handful of people can make a tiny corner of the world a better place.
