I live life looking forward to Mondays and waiting for the next Gandhi to save the world. I’d rather wake up to birds singing in the morning, than an alarm clock that I can immediately shut-off. I believe in love at first sight and that everyone will eventually find their soul mate and feel loved. I consider myself an optimistic person and firmly believe that everything happens for a reason, even though so many things are unknown. I often get asked How do you stay so positive or Why do you always look at the glass half full, and honestly, I never quite know how to respond.

Truth be told, it’s not always an easy thing to do. Looking at things that happen in a positive way is hard, especially when you start to realize how screwed up the world actually is. It’s really difficult sometimes to look at the glass half full, when many people around the world don’t even have access to drinking water. And it’s actually terrifying that it’s the middle of winter and birds singing in the morning most likely means that global warming is in full effect. I’m not looking forward to voting in the upcoming election because regardless of which candidate I pick, I ultimately feel as though I’m choosing the lesser of two evils. I spend my days in lectures that talk about current events and problems that are occurring around the world. And usually leave class feeling extremely defeated, sad, and basically like a piece of shit. The more I learn, the more I feel that the world may very likely be coming to an end. I don’t necessarily want to say that the world is ending, and I definitely don’t want it to end in my lifetime, but something seriously needs to change.

Yeah, a lot of things in the world are really screwed up and sad, and I’m just an 18-year-old girl from Michigan with little to no power, but I think there’s something really significant about that. We as human beings have an extraordinary amount of power, it’s just not always used properly. And I’m not saying that I’m going to be the next Oprah or something absurd like that, even though that is the ultimate goal, but there’s so many opportunities and possibilities that happen to us every second of every day that allow us to make a difference in the world and actually be the change. Growing up, my mom always instilled in my head that the world is your oyster, this, although a little cliché, is honestly so true. If you look at things that are occurring around the world as problems, then why wouldn’t/couldn’t you be the solution? If you want to go out and change the world, do it!! There is a light at the end of every tunnel. Yeah, okay, maybe I’m just being overly hopeful, but that is a common side effect of being an optimist.

Being optimistic can be very trying at times and bad things that happen really do tend to test the hopefulness that I feel, but at the end of the day, when all is said and done, I can confidently say that the world is so incredibly beautiful, wonderful things do happen here and I feel we can change things, we can and we will make a difference.