those teenage hopes

do you remember when we knew absolutely nothing, but we were so sure of everything?

those were the days.

i've gotten a lot of flack lately for being 'idealistic'. i'm sure that all of my africa-loving confidants and club members have gotten the same jive from anyone they've told 'i'm gonna change the world.' it's a hefty goal, i won't lie, but i know that, and i don't think there's anything wrong with hefty goals.

whether it be my wanting to be a high school english teacher, or save africa, or write a novel, or change anything significant, people seem very quick to discourage. they tell me that i'm being 'overly optimistic' and 'not thinking about the real world' and 'setting goals too high' and that i'll 'be dissapointed.' well, i'm pretty sure that any person in the whole world who has ever done anything worth anything heard the same crap from everyone they knew. i'm sure that steinbeck heard that writing the great american novel was too great a task, and plenty of people told martin luther king that there was no point in even trying to desegregate america, and someone probably told oprah that trying to build a school in africa was a task too great to take on. in fact, i bet people told her when she was thirteen that there was no good in trying to be anything more than she was, or try to change the world, because it was never going to happen.

i'm not saying that i'm anything like any of those great people, in fact i'm saying that my goal seems insiginificant compared to theirs, and if they can achieve that sort of greatness, why can't i be a teacher? and if you think i don't understand what i'm getting myself into, or i'm being too idealistic, or i'm an idiot for wanting to change a few kid's lives, then fuck you. you don't know me and you didn't have very good teachers.

because you know what? people do it. there are teachers out there who get thanked for oscars, and who get movies made about them. there are also teachers whose name will never be in a paper, and will never be on a talk show, and who may never even hear thank you, but years later someone tells their kids 'it's all thanks to this teacher i had in high school..." maybe if it never happened, maybe if teachers never made a difference, i would believe you. but the thing is, they do. it's possible, and it's possible for me.

i would rather be idealistic than cynical. i would rather believe in good things than wait patiently for the bad. if given the choice, any day, to set my goals so high that i can never reach them or set them so low that anyone could, i would choose the first.

and in a few years, or decades, when i am doing something i love, and i feel like i've made a difference, whether everyone sees it or not, and you're complacent with where you've always been, and the way things always were, then we'll see who's happier. you will probably lie.

<3genevieve