The Golden Rule

You ever experience those days when you wonder "What's next?" Well, that's how I'm kind of feeling today. I have a plan for my life, for my future, but I kind of wonder if that's all there's going to be to my life. I'm going to work hard, achieve my goals, and then....what? Put my accomplishments under my belt and call it a good day? Is that really all there is to life?

I want to experience something amazing. Something that I won't easily forget and think back to it all the time and say "Wow, I can't believe I actually did that, but I did." I want to have an amazing, adventurous, beautiful, tragic, romantic, spiritual, inspiring story that I can pass on to my kids. Something that will make their jaw drop when they hear it and think dude, my mom was so cool. Something that I wouldn't mind them saying with the tagged on phrase "when she was younger."

I see these inspiring stories all the time in the news, on social sites, on inspirational websites, etc, about these heroic people that do something so selfless and fearless that it gives you goosebumps. I want to do that. I don't really care if I'm known for it but my future kids will definitely know about it. I mean, I could save a baby elephant from a tsunami or something. I could be a spokesperson and advocate for saving the rain forest and not only talk about it but actually go out to the Amazon and save it. I could research some highly infectious disease and find a cure for it. I just need the opportunity to present itself.

Right now, I'm looking for opportunities (that are a little more conventional) where I can make a big difference such as with RISE on campus. There is much more religious intolerance here than what I had originally expected. I've been the victim of it personally and I'm sure I'm not the only one. We have a Buddhist Study Group and a Muslim Study Group and a Universal Unitarians group that struggled endlessly to get approved to be recognized as an official group. There is also the Listen (LGBTQ) group that finally got approved last Fall after their 18 years of fighting for approval.

Groups like this shouldn't have to fight to be approved of. They should be approved of because it is displaying not only tolerance, but compassion for human beings. Just about every religion has something called "The Golden Rule." So let's start following it!