What If?

Tap, tap, tap. My foot never stops moving. I'm sitting in my Honors Spanish Three class, wondering about why my foot never stops moving, and writing about it. Why does it jiggle as it does, never pausing to take a breath? Why must I ask so many questions about pointless, mindless subjects that have no depth?

I'm introverted, I'm extroverted. I'm stubborn, I'm malleable. I'm impatient, I have too little time. I don't believe in a higher power, I want so desperately for this to not be the end.

I don't believe in heaven or hell, per say. I don't believe in any higher power, nor do I believe in "sins" or "forgiveness." I believe in human nature. Human nature, for me, dictates how we do what we do, and why we do what we do. Naturally, since I believe that "heaven" is an eternal sleep (you don't really know you're dead; it's much like falling asleep, you can't note the exact time it happened), I am unafraid of death. Of course, I'm not sticking a piece of raw meat under its nose and taunting it, but I understand that it will come regardless of whether I try to bring it closer or push it farther away. You're probably wondering why I'm rambling on about death. Stick with me, here.

While I don't believe in heaven or hell, I do believe in the power of love. I do believe in karma, and I do believe in negative and positive energy. I believe that one can channel energy through their emotions, actions, expressions, and bodies. Every single thing we do has an effect on every single thing around us. Whether the effect is positive or negative is up to the action itself, but I strongly believe that nowadays, most people have lost the benefit of simplicity.

With all of the extravagance and lavishness we live in, it's hard to stop and realize that these things aren't necessary. Do we have to live with TVs in our rooms, and iPod headphones in our ears 24/7? Don't get me wrong; as a typical music-loving teenager, I'd probably go clinically insane without my music. But what if we lived without all of these "basic necessities?" What if we lived without the Starbucks coffee for a while, and looked at all of the people who don't have food, who don't have school, who don't have clothes, who don't have medicine to cure their diseases? What if we gave what we could to help these people? Don't you think that giving a mere half of what we don't need to people who need it more? 

As my career, it's always been my dream to work with teen parents in an urban environment. I'd like to be a social worker in inner-city San Francisco, and I'd like to retire building hospitals and homes for people in underdeveloped regions of South America and Africa. I want to spend my last few years giving to people who need things more than I do. Yeah, it'll probably be uncomfortable. It'll be buggy, humid; I probably won't have a decent bed for the remainder of my visit. But I believe that after coasting through life, coasting through school, I should try for once.