Making A Difference - Part 1 - What Difference Does It Make?

There are so many things I can think of doing that can make a difference in the lives of those who have big dreams but little opportunity, but I am a loner trapped in my fear of failure as well as of success. Such fears do not subside with wisdom or over time. Rather, they immobilize the will. Action cannot arise without an active will. Hence, status quo has reigned over me.

An acceptable status quo can be quite comfortable. As much as I would like to act on my impulses, a certain voice within has taken them away. Perhaps what I need is a “partner-in-crime” to free me from the shackles of comfort and embark on an adventure that is both uncharted and unpredictable.

The question then becomes whether I would enjoy being a dice-throwing mover and shaker? I think I might. Otherwise I would not be entertaining the possibility. [1]

What about having the best of both worlds, being comfortable in my status quo and engaging in action that could make a difference? I suppose that can be accomplished by existing vicariously in a fantasy world unrewarded by the depths of human interaction and the realities of passion. In essence, I would have to be an intellectual. There is a catch, however. An intelligent intellectual’s life is sterile and an unintelligent intellectual’s life is futile, neither of which sounds promising.

Not all is doomed. Intellectual dishonesty provides a silver lining. Using time as its friend, it concludes that things change with or without my doing. Even if my will could dictate an action that would alter people’s lives today, the people still living tomorrow would begin their morning unraveling and reforming what had occurred yesterday. So, what difference does it make?

In the end, perhaps it is not so much what we do but who we are that ought to be of concern.


[1] I re-read this paragraph on May 29, 2013, and I am in shock.  I was toying with the disgusting thought of being a mover and shaker?  How could that be unless the work was done in the service of God..  I would rather spend time in prayer and reading and re-reading the Divine Comedy by Dante, Confessions by Saint Augustine and works written on Francis of Assisi.  That is not Acedia, is it?