Changing the world: It begins with yourself

I originally wanted to write something about the conflicting black and white views on education or poverty experienced from our recent Dominican Republic excursion. However, I assumed many of my fellow colleagues were going to present that topic so I decided to take a different route. As a global citizen (who is a member of the homo sapiens species regardless of race, class, culture, ethnicity, and/or economic status that strives to achieve basic human rights to all individuals and eradicate poverty), I plan to share with you 2 of my changed beliefs and values: (1) my belief on changing the world & (2) my view on how to change the world. To begin iterating my first change, I naively believed that I could change the world and make a dramatically large impact single-handedly before the trip to Dominican Republic. I planned on being a doctor and traveling the world to cure the sick and meet amazing new people. However, as I began exploring civil problems in third world countries from Mexico to my most recent trip to in Dominican Republic, I realized that I was nothing but a grain of sand in a world where wealth, power, and politics rule among us. There were more sick people and problems in the world that I could not have ever imagined. I didn’t know how helpless I was as a 20 year old with no money, no fluency in Spanish language, and no power of authority until I went to the Dominican Republic. At the orphan school, it was heartbreaking to see the lack of resources and funding that the children desperately needed. I questioned if being a doctor was even worth it if I can’t fulfill my personal lifelong goal of changing the world as corny as it may sound. But as time went on and the more I hung out with my group, the experience helped me to approach my goal differently. Specifically, adjusting to the Dominican culture, such as the concept of time, gave me great opportunities to become flexible and to approach any life problem in a step-wise manner. I had been measuring my ability to change the world based on the amount of wealth or power I had and I realized that this was absurd. I remember spending only 5 minutes of my time genuinely listening to one Dominican child talk about his problems and after I gave him a hug, the definition I had meticulously crafted of changing the world shattered. My belief of impacting the world changed to start with one person at a time instead of an entire planet or country. And so long story short, I will start to impact communities nearest to me to make a difference in the world and hope for the best that my actions will create ripple effect. A close friend of mine from the group recently said a quote that gave me the insight to this half of my essay and she said, “You can’t eat an elephant whole. You need to start off with bite-size pieces.” My belief on how to change the world also altered. As I witnessed many problems in the world including poverty, economic instability, and unjust governments my mind began to crank solutions to these problems. At one point, all I could think of was how can I change this or how can I change that or how can I make this better or that better? But then I came to realize that I was selfishly forcing my views on what was better to these third world countries, thinking that the possible changes I make to impact the world was the best solution. I began to understand that many Americans including myself believe