Save[or] the World

I’m in that stage of life when it’s really easy to live solely for oneself and lack the responsibility or true caring of/for others.

Even the few closest to me whom I was honestly willing to do anything for a few years ago have fallen further and further from my maniacally rising ego. It’s a self-inflicted attempt, I suppose, to compensate for a lack of big-ego qualifications (in other words, since I don’t deserve accolades, my mind builds myself up to a point where theoretically I should deserve them). In fact, when my best friend adopted/rescued a dog this past spring I was more than a little annoyed merely because it seemed a huge inconvenience: a passing whim that would increase responsibility and decrease the ability to pleasure oneself at leisure.

My generation, coupled with my own personality, encourages me to seek out the refugees and experience “the taste of adventure” as I “save [or savor?] the world.” Volunteering for a few months here and there, tweeting and blogging about humanitarian efforts and social issues, reading the news and discoursing earnestly with fellow academics and globetrotters in foreign cafes and cyberized venues are the rage—the defining mantra of my university generation.

But it doesn’t mean I do anything, and it doesn’t mean I overflow with generosity and selflessness toward those around me. I’m really quite horribly selfish, and I have let that selfishness get in the way of nearly everything I’ve done for the past few years.

I don’t know how it crept up, I really don’t. Yet even my once carefully honed spirit of generosity has fallen by the wayside, and I will admit that the joylessness I’ve brought about both myself and others throughout my college and recent post-grad life has been because of an ever-growing selfishness. The determination to plan my life and stick to it accordingly and get stressed or upset f it doesn’t turn out right has become a defining characteristic of my paltry, worthless life.

Tonight is the night I articulate these growing realizations and dreads.
I renounce the mind-eating stress that eats at my mind, rips at my soul, bloats my stomach.

I renounce my secret self-exaltation and ambitionless desire to socialize via the web on my own fat bed while maintaining a façade of globalized interests.

I renounce my time-wasting obsessions and habits too numerous and time-wasting to specifize.

I renounce my unfounded dismay at the adoption/rescue of a lovable creation of God….my friend’s mischievous but vibrant husky. Maybe I'll even follow suit. I’ll adopt/rescue a hedgehog. Cute little buggers, they are.

And now, I’m off to save the world.