Sunrise Like A Nosebleed, Your Head Hurts And You Can't Breathe, You Been Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World

--"Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World", U2

When I wrote about how Rachel set a good example for me over three years ago I was filled with the optimism anybody who decides to make a change for the better is filled with. I wanted to follow her lead. I wanted to be a better person because I read firsthand what a profound difference in made in her life and all of the lives that touched hers. I was filled with an initiative that with hard work and determination I really could imitate her life in regards to being a force for good. I didn't have any ulterior motives for it. I was fully behind becoming this altruistic paragon of virtue because it was the right thing to do and because I thought I needed it.

The trouble with trying to become a better person is that it's not as easy as reading a book or emulating a person's choices. I've never found success in asking myself what would so-and-so do--as in, as my friend likes to say, "what would Indiana Jones do?" It just doesn't work like that. You cannot ride the coattails of a personal hero and expect the same results. That was a fact that these three years have taught me. Believe me, if I were to claim anyone as a hero, it would definitely be Rachel. I'm certain there is not a single person out there who I've regarded as being everything I wanted to be as much as her. The manner in which she conducted herself, the choices she made when it came to sticking to her principles, the generous and caring warmth of spirit she possessed--all of these things served to inspire me doubly and triply more than any other text, advice, or speeches I've ever come across. If I had a religious figure central to my core beliefs, it certainly would be her.

Yet I'm not her. It's taken me awhile to realize that. I'm just not built to be warm and friendly to everyone. This is not to say I'm cruel to all who stray into my sphere of influence. I've merely discovered that I don't have the type of personality which invites people to open up to me right away. Sure, I think I've helped out a few people now and again, but it's always after a short period of introductions, which is usually what trips me up. I simple don't have the drive to make as many friends as possible. I've always been relatively happy with a few select friends which I would do anything for. However, a force for good does not that make me. If anything, I leave things exactly the same I found out. I help out those who I've always helped out, but I don't set out to harm someone if I can avoid it and I don't set out to help someone new every day. That's been the hardest lesson for me to realize. I'll never be someone who changes the world with his words and his actions like Rachel does.


your lips move but you can't talk
trying to throw your arms around the world

For this last year I've spoken to a few people how this incongruity has troubled me. I still have this overwhelming desire to be a better person, more in the limelight, fighting the good fight wherever I go. Yet the reality of my being dictates that I'm better equipped to be a complete savior when it comes to the people who have made a deep and lasting connection with me. I'm really good at that. I'm really good at sacrificing all of my being for those who've earned my trust.

But is that good enough?

Does that put me down the same path as my hero, as Rachel?

Probably not. But I think the thing about inspirational figures is that they never really set out to be inspirational figures. I don't think she ever imagined people would want to follow in her footsteps exactly. I don't think she ever envisioned me trying to accomplish everything she did. What I do think is that she would have wanted people to try to better themselves and she would have wanted people to help out in whatever way they could.

She would have wanted to know that a lot of people in a lot of different places were doing good because of the person she was. That's the important part, the desire to effect change in one's self.

I still have the desire, but I think I've given up the dream of ever being exactly like her. As I wrote before,

She set a good example. That's the best compliment I can ever give anyone.

Maybe it's time I take her cue and trying setting a good example in my own unique way--not in saving the whole world, but in saving some people who have turned out to be important to me.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers