if you had one chance

What does it take to change the world?

What does it take to end poverty?

What does it mean to be a leader?

I feel like this year has moved me closer to those answers and more. On Sunday, Philadelphia was hit with a wave of hail and a sporadic thunderstorm. Large pellets of water fell from the sky, pushing their way into the earth and flooding away the remnants of the winter. On Monday as I was walking to the subway I noticed there was a different smell in the air, something new painting the world around me: green. Green is my favorite color and I have never appreciated it more. Spring had sprung and green, lush, verdant life was emerging from the earth.

A volunteer just told me that in her meeting with a new client she was able to find a job for him and line up a house. Green, lush, verdant life emerging from the earth.

We live in a world of possibilities. I know that the present year has been lauded as a crisis but it is something much more precious, an opportunity. It's a wake up call, we've been going in the wrong direction, being uselessly exessive and unnecessarily proud. We have a new opportunity to make things better and more useful. If anything, we have been shown that we need to include more perspectives and voices in the work we do. We've got to realize how we are all connected, how our actions have consequences, not just for us but for so many others. We've got to keep up our enthusiasm in the face of seeminly immovable boundaries and we've got to be smart and understand the future as it relates to our actions in the present.

Green, lush, verdant life emerging from the earth. My life is my one chance to make in impact. There must be a God in this world, the way the earth seems with life. Yet we are here too and God flows through us. Has given us a piece of himself in hopes that we can all work together to bring this world to a greater place. And I am here to answer the call. I know that change is possible.

The challenge wasn't whether to buy a couple of bottles of champagne; it was instead not to take or privelege for granted and to use it in a way that served the world and our highest purpose.
Jacqueline Novogratz