Alternatives to a Necessary Evil

So, Sterling Scholar Applications were due today. What's with all the people who've already secured full-ride scholarships to their selected schools trying to compete with us poor kids who can't afford to go to college if we don't get this scholarship? Um, go find some national scholarship contest to enter. I've basically decided that I hate money. If our world wasn't completely controlled by it, life would be happier. In my utopian society, you would join clubs and non-profit organizations and such, and the time you spent involved in those would "pay" for your schooling. Obama said a couple weeks ago that he wanted to institute a plan where any person who joins AmeriCorps, the Peace Corps, or the military (although being a pacifist I wouldn't choose the last option) and serves for a year will have their college paid for by federal funds. I think it's a brilliant plan. Too bad our country doesn't have any funds to spend in the first place.

I'm a big fan of non-profit organizations and clubs and such. I thrive on being involved in all kinds of things. I've only been volunteering at the AF hospital for nine months, but it's been sort of a life-changing experience. Volunteerism is something drastically overlooked and underrated in our society. Imagine all the things we could accomplish if everyone were to volunteer for something they cared about.

It's always been my dream to join an organization like the Peace Corps. Maybe something smaller, more quaint. But someday, either between college and graduate school or after graduate school, I want to travel to Africa and Asia and South America, teaching English and helping people build better lives for themselves. It's my firm belief that the surest way to save the world -- from poverty, hunger, disease, and such; once it's started, there's not much you can do about war but wait for it end and then clean up the mess -- is to teach others. Teach them to take care of themselves. Teach them to care. Give them the desire to make a better life for themselves and they will work to obtain it, instead of waiting for the government to hand it to them.

"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them."
--George Bernard Shaw