I Know I Didn't Put The P

Yo,

I saw Constant Gardener yesterday. It was actually a pretty great movie. It dealt with very interesting topics, and for me it brought up the theme of, "What can I do to help?"

This is a recurring theme in my head. The basic idea, which I've written about before so forgive the slight redundancy, is that I want to do something that helps people when I grow up. I want to do a job which will improve people's lives. The ideas for future life choices at this point in time are as such:

1) Become leader of my youth movement (Mazkir Tnua...great title)
2) Drop everything and pursue imrov seriously
3) Grad School for something or other, possible Speech Pathology

Now, from these three, it seems #1 holds the most option of helping people. My movement is part of an international movement which works towards peace and social justice in Israel, among other things. As the head of my movement, I can direct actions, set plans in place, and get involved in international coordinated initiatives. I could even push my movement to get more actively and officially involved in domestic social justice issues, of which there are many.

But #3 also holds a lot of potential. If I were to gain a useful skill, such as Speech Pathology certification, I would be actively helping individuals every day! That seems awesome, right? Its not as large scale as my movement, but it is way more concrete that planning and implementing initiatives and the like. Either this person can talk, or they can't...figure it out!

Unfortunately for me, #2 is very possibly at the top of my list. This option holds the least "help people" potential. It does seem the funnest. I mean, imrov! Its so great, I love doing imrov, imrov is so fulfilling, I never feel like I'm getting enough of imrov! It makes sense to go for it, right?

Here's the thing: To temper the fervor raised inside myself after the Constant Gardener, I also gained an interesting message from an episode of My So Called Life. First of all, let me just say that this show is really fun to watch. It is really well made, and the characters are all really interesting. Anyway, in this most recent episode, Graham (Angela's [Claire Danes] Dad) has a life-shaking event happen. He realizes that although he may be good at his job, its not what he wants to be doing, and he doesn't want to waste his life away. Luckily, his wife realizes this and being his boss, fires him. How touching. The moral is obvious, and its relevant. I do love imrov, and it makes me really happy. Isn't that whats most important overall?

Shit. I hate that two different and equally entertaining and poignant fictional stories are putting me into such a moral paradox!

Anyway, the positive outlook on all this is that I'm still really young, and I have time to dabble in things before making the big leap into a career for quite some time. Thats the lesson I learned from some guy I kinda know who I ran into yesterday and had a short but awkward conversation with. Perhaps the best lessons in life come from real life interactions, and not from watching glowing screens of scripted interactions with prepackaged morals.

That was a kind of hippy ending. Shit.