It’s time to stop pointing fingers, stop crying that it’s never enough, and remember what we are here to do.
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I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
~Edward Everett Hale
When I was thirteen I wanted to save the world. By the time I was 20 I wanted to at least change the world. As I grew older (before I remembered how to grow younger too) I thought if we could only solve ONE problem I would be content. If we could end war, or at least end one war. If we could put a stop to sexism, racism, even elitism. If we could cure cancer, AIDS, even stop acne for heaven’s sake, I would feel that there was hope for all mankind.
That’s what being human is – a life and death effort with a lot of trying between the living and the dying.
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Now that age has become a fluid, indefinite aspect of my life, I don’t know that we are meant to solve the problems of the world. I’ve come to understand, in fact, that we are not.
We are not meant to solve violence and war.
We are not meant to solve sickness and pain.
We are not meant to solve heartbreak and hate.
We are not meant to solve hunger and poverty.
Those things are a part of our human experience. They have been with us since the dawn of time, it seems likely that we are not meant to live as humans without them. So I know now that we are not meant to solve those problems.
But I know this too – what we are meant to do is to try.
That’s what being human is – a life and death effort with a lot of trying between the living and the dying.
If in trying to end violence and war we save hundreds from being victims of a bullet or rape —
If in trying to end sickness and pain there are even one, two, three who are cancer free, who walk again, who no longer suffer through sleepless nights of agony —
If in trying to end heartache and bitterness there are families, communities, couples and countries who find compassion and healing —
If in trying to end hunger and poverty we send one homeless parent back to to the shelter with enough to feed a family for one more night —
If only that, then our trying is not a failure.
It is not true “there is no try.” There is only try.
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Our trying — what it makes of us, what it makes of our world — our trying in spite of and because of the impossibility of solving the problem, that is how we know we are more than human. Only in trying do we rise above what it is to be human, and remember what it is to be divine.
It is not true “there is no try.” There is only try. Because only in trying are we able to do anything at all.
Only in trying, when we know it cannot be done, do we do what we are really meant to do.
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Photo: Getty Images