Global Concern

“Alright, thank you everyone and see you guys next week, same time.” I said with dread pitting at the bottom of my stomach. As if on cue, the members of the Korea Without Borders Global Concern(GC) kicked back their chairs and sprinted for the door, their bags and books already packed away 20 minutes ago. I heard one or two swearing that they’d never come back again.

Something had to be done. For the past two months since this Global Concern project was set up I have been trying desperately to make a change that I had so longed to make. If only people will listen! How is helping the foreign workers who suffer from discrimination and lack of health care worthless? Why don’t people give my cause the attention and devotion that it obviously deserves? Isn’t upholding the Universal Declaration of Human rights a worthwhile cause? A couple of weeks more like this and the Global Concerns Executive will intervene, and this project would be shut down. It was now or never.

Then it hit me. They may have feigned interest in my cause, but they were really in it because of the things they could gain from joining my GC, and I can tell you it wasn’t the fulfillment when you help others. They aren’t heartless; they knew that the cause was important. The problem was, my cause wasn’t their cause. It was something you’d look at every day and just pass by thinking ‘oh that’s too bad’. As a leader I had only been asserting my views, expecting others to think the same way I did, without considering other people’s interests. That was a poor example of leadership.

I started to see things from their perspective. I knew they all had traits that made them valuable to our team one way or another. Motivation was the key word here. The inspiration could come later. I analyzed their strengths and weaknesses, then it really came together clearly how to make them work cohesively as a team. I would give the artists jobs for publicity and awareness. I would give the musicians a concert sponsored under our GC. I would give the outspoken ones positions to lead small groups.

Things finally kicked into motion. We held our first fundraiser in January at the school community fair. We raised 300 dollars. It was a start.

A leader, then I came to realize, is not a renaissance man who can make things happen by himself and cause a following with godlike achievements. He’s just a man by himself. He stands out in the crowd because he holds a vision, the big picture in his mind that he will devote his life in order to make that big picture a reality. In most cases these visions are worthwhile, such is the case with my project, but what makes that vision come to reality, is the connection that the leader makes with his vision and the followers. His job is to give the crowd of people a ‘push’ in the right direction to start a movement that will snowball and cause the change that he had hoped to make. I will be that change.

This is actually going to be my university application essay haha. But this sums my experience up nicely.

Believe.

What we believe is what we become. I can't recall who actually said that nor can I remember who told me that. But looking back I know that's true. The image of whatever we believe, whether it be religion, a certain person, a certain model of life or society, will latch onto our minds, our soul, our body and steer us in ways unimaginable, subtly, controlling our subconsciousness and also consciousness to become whatever is that we believe.

Only I realized that too late. No, I realized it yet I didn't do anything about it.

I don't really have a role model. Not a real one anyway. I only have this image of myself that I want to be. A fictional character who, in the future, hopefully become me. A character with a broad spectrum of freinds and who is able to communicate and associate with the whole spectrum of the society. In other words, he has to be the renaissance man; he must be all rounded, multi-talented, and most of all, standing at the center of the society.

I must say it was painful to have that image rendered impossible. I only realized now that to become this character is possible, yet I have failed. The darker side(yes I could not come up with a better name) of life has drawn me in, pulled me captive until I could not wrestle myself free from them.

At the same time I know that there was no such thing as 'identity' for me. My identity was erratic; it wasn't fixed. There was this core 'dark' me that did not change much and yet most of me still swung like pendulum across the range of things that a person could become. It was fortunate that the pendulum didn't swing too far into horrible consequences. And I have to say, it was only due to some people, and one person in particular in my life recently that stopped me from swinging too far into the darkness, until the pendulum breaks and my life lost forever.

And now I must swing it back, to the light and let it swing in the light, not in the darkness.

I see the problem clearly yet I am afraid to face it. To be in the light will be to change who I am completely, give up the ways of life that I have pursued before until my life's worth of identity built lost. I will be lost, to be reforged to become someone different.

Someone unrecognizable even by myself.

It scares me. There is no doubt that I should change. But when I change the thigns will be completely different. I passed many points of no return, only to realize that they are all nothing, except the one I stand now. There is no further to go, except a cliff. To fall down it is to lose myself completely without even the slightest hope of return.

To turn back and go back is to walk through fields of glass and thorns, then claw my way through muck and shit and dirt and all disgusting things, and finally whip myself like the repentants did in the middle ages. I am afraid. Who would not be when faced with killing your current self completely in order to be reborn?

And one most desperate question persists in my mind; what would happen to us?

One person who helped me by maintaining the link between the light and darkness, one person who left me that slight chance to come back, and one person who did bring me back, although not completely. She will be facing someone completely different, if this is to go right. She would be looking at a stranger, even. How would she see me then? Would she be disappointed, approving, loving or scared, can she accept it?

I have no choice but to think best of situations and believe. The situation is more dire than ever, though it sounds very melodramatic. I must persist. I must persevere and pull through.

And I must believe that everything work out in the end.

But you see, for a person who's never had faith in anything else but himself, that is very hard.

God never looked so tempting. To believe in a higher order and being and to rest your soul on that is indeed a tantalizing option.

Can I do that?