Hello, and thank you so much for subscribing to my blog. I’m posting today as an introduction and explanation surrounding my upcoming year. Enjoy, and please comment!
During high school, I became very interested in global human rights, and I also became active with tutoring and mentoring kids in my community. Getting involved in projects surrounding these issues is where I realized how much I enjoyed putting time and effort into service. This past February, I, like many of my classmates, was on the fast track to college. I’d done the visits, applied, picked a major, and I was even signed up for enrollment. I always knew that when I “grew up” I wanted to help others, and I thought I needed to go directly to college to do that. In the midst of all the winter college preparation, I felt unexplainably unsettled and unsure.
Then, one day, I found Global Citizen Year through a suggested page by Facebook. Before this day, I hadn’t taken the time to stop to think about the direction my life was going. I thought that going directly into college was all I needed to do to make sure I was on the path to success, but everything about the idea of taking a year off, to serve in a developing community, made sense to me. After I was accepted, I knew I had a life-altering choice to make by committing to the program or not, but the decision was actually very simple for a few reasons.
I realized how little I understood about the world around me, that I can’t even grasp how so much of the world lives, and that I have barely tasted what it means to serve. As people who get to share this planet of ours, I think we are all called to live compassionate lives, and to use the abilities, interests, strengths, and talents we have to make our community a better place. I’m very fortunate that I get to take this detour, for eight months, live a life that is unlike anything I’ve experienced, grow and develop my interests, serve in a developing community, and learn from the leaders of some amazing organizations.
I feel very fortunate that with much support, this crazy adventure gets to be the next chapter in my life story. I know that this next year will bring discomfort and frustration, and will require enormous personal growth, but no matter where I am in life these are bound to follow. With so little time, and so much life to experience, constant comfort isn’t a place I want to live in.
Thank you for subscribing to my blog, and please feel free to comment. If you would like to donate online to help me before I leave in five weeks, click on the link below. Everything helps, but everyone who donates $25 will receive a postcard from me while in Ecuador!
