Impacts

(This is something off-topic that I thought of while writing my last post, and I feel that it is relevant in my next post, too.)

I want to do something good with my life. I don't know what, but I want to make an impact. This post could sound very preachy, but I really just want to shed some light on the two impacts people can make. The big ones and the little ones. Both are vital to making the world a better place, and as my senior year gets closer, my future gets closer. College and careers get closer, and I have to decide what to do with my time on earth. It's a scary thing, and I don't really know yet what I want to do. I need to figure that out pretty soon. One way to start is consider the size of impact I want to make on society. Do I want to be in the New York Times, or the local Gazette for my work? Neither is better than the other, but I have to consider my options.

I'll put it in economic terms, as if donating to a charity is the impact being discussed.

Some people get rich. They act in big movies, gain hundreds of thousands of followers, donate millions of dollars to something they believe in. When you become a big, well-known figure, you have the ability to do something you love, be highly successful and valued for it, and you can have a huge influence on the millions that know who you are. When you have millions of dollars, you can donate some of it to a good cause you believe in and advocate for others to also contribute. That's a huge, huge, impact. That's the far end of the scale. We're talking Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie. Millions of people are paying attention to what they do.

Some people focus on a small task to succeed at or work towards. Volunteering at the local soup kitchen is much more small scale. Raising money for a dance marathon at school is small scale. Collected cans of food for homeless shelters is a small scale example too. In this case, you participate in small scale positive forces because you have a smaller scale of funds. 

In both of these examples, contributing to charity isn't the only impact you have. You have a job, a daily career to follow. But the career you follow could also be an opportunity to make an impact and support yourself, too. The impact my teachers make is to help students. A larger scale version of my high school math teacher is a college professor that teaches hundreds more students and teaches at a higher level of learning.

Stay awesome,
Claire

P.S. I'm not sure what the point of this was. Just to make people think. Think about the impact you want to make and make it a positive one, kids. That is all. I think it ties to the next post because Mac acts on a small-scale.

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