Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Determining the Future

In the story with the student from Stanford, I don’t necessarily believe he was trying to say that he wants his grandchild to work in that same homeless shelter that he did. I believe that he meant it to be viewed as he hopes that his grandchildren can get that same experience that he did while working there. He was taught more while volunteering there, than he actually was in school. The lesson can be that by volunteering you are not only helping out, but learning life lessons along the way. In order to create a society where his grandchildren wouldn’t actually have to work in a shelter would take a lot. Sure everyone wants to see change happen, and wishes that things like homelessness and world hunger could all be “fixed.” But how many of those people are actually trying to make the difference happen. It would take people having to stop worrying about their personal lives so much, like Loeb says, and start to take time out of their hectic lives to do those couple hours of community service so that they could take that step towards making a difference in order to get t hose people so they don’t have to sleep on the streets or in shelters. Honestly, by the time my grandchildren come along, I really don’t believe that this will be able to happen. It would be great if it could, but everyone in our society is so wrapped up in themselves, that they will just say they want things to happen, but will never put forth enough effort to where we can all come together to make this change occur. We are the ones that determine the outcome of what is going to be in the future. I think that if enough people can come together, then sure there can be an indent in how many people there actually are on the streets, and how many shelters there are, or how well maintained they are, but unfortunately I don’t believe that this issue can be completely eliminated by then.

5 comments:

Anna Mann said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anna Mann said...

I wrote a comment, but then deleted it because I wanted to fix it. I totally agree with you on the Stanford student, and how he was thinking of the lessons that can be learned from volunteering.
I also hope a lot more people get involved too!

Chris said...

Your comment "We are the ones that determine the outcome of what is going to be in the future." is well said. However, it is taking words and putting them into action that is the toughest step towards making a difference. You and your new SLICE friends are doing just that. Hopefully it will continue well into your adult years.

Dr. V said...

I see it very differently. As a Stanford student, he was privileged to go to a Ivy league school and then when he volunteered, he saw he could make a difference. Why did it take so long and why wait until Stanford. Didn't he see the homeless where he lived before. It's not like homeless are only in one place.

But I agree with you. Words are important but ACTION is what stands out to people.

Lewis Jr. said...

It seems today that there is a lot of procrastination. If that is how you spell it. Any way, there is a lot of talk about what should be done and we always seem to think that the next generation might do it better or that they won't do a good job. As for homeless, I feel that if it was stressed more by society and how cool it is, maybe people would volunteer more. Instead, of just showing how sad people are.