You can change the world?
Last night as I pondered sleep, I had this thought that I couldn’t shake. I was replaying my convocation speech over in my head and was struck by something when it comes to our college graduates these days. During my speech I spoke on the 5Ls and in particular conscious love, the importance of it and how it can change the world. None of that is different from my day to day but the “change the world” part hit me different somehow.
As I looked out at the students that day, I was proud and happy for them. I viewed them as the next generation of great leaders and social shakers entering the world and indeed I think they have the chance to do something great with a degree from ASU. But change the world?! That is no small task. I went back further and thought about me when I was in my early twenties or even earlier than that, say high school, and I don’t think I was ever told, Shawn you are going to change the world and in fact, I don’t know if I even personally thought the world needed changed at the time. We were not as globally connected and I think that has something to do with it but it is more than that. What was expected of high school students was to simply grow up and learn and do what you can to be a decent human being. That pressure is a lot if you think about it, but imagine being told, like many of of our kids today while growing up, that it is on them to somehow change the whole WORLD! That is a pressure cooker if ever there was.
Every day our kids are looking at a world that is simply in shambles and we are telling them they are going to change it. I don’t know if you are reading this and remember being a young dad or not but I was afraid to change a diaper let alone the world. I think it is incumbent upon us who are loving our kids the best we can to decide not to put the pressure of changing the world on their shoulders. They have enough pressure just growing up, changing their own clothes and remembering to brush their teeth at night. Besides, shouldn’t it be the responsibility of we who have more wisdom and more skin in the game to do the world changing? I mean really, we should do what we can to change the world for those who are just graduating this week and for those who just being born today. Perhaps this generation, like the one sitting in front of me during my speech, you know, the one marked by stress, anxiety, depression and suicide could finally find some reprieve from the responsibility of changing a world we had part in creating.
