An old man was once asked how he had lived his life. He had replied:
“When I was a young man, I believed I could change the world for the better. I tried so many things and realized that I had no effect. I became very frustrated and worked harder and harder to try and change the world. Nothing I did seemed to matter.
“I decided that if I could not change the world, I could change my country. Again, I set out working on this lofty goal of changing the country to be better. Nothing changed except my own skepticism about life. I thought, well maybe I can change my state or my city. So again, I worked and worked. Still, no amount of my work changed the state or my city or community, or even the neighborhood I lived in for the better.
Thoroughly frustrated, I knew I could at least change my family for the better. They would respect me and if I applied all my work and skills to this one task, I could change my family for the better. As I got older, I realized that indeed, I did not change my family for the better.
I finally settled on just working on making a better me. I found things I could work on to make myself a better person. As I began to finally have an effect on my own life, I was less frustrated and happier than ever in my life. I had finally had some impact by at least changing me to become a better person.
As I continued to only change myself, I noticed that not only had I become a better person, but my family also became better. As they became better, so did our neighborhood, then our community, our city, our country. I never had any effect on changing the world, but by working on only becoming a better me, I had indeed had an impact on making the world a better place.”
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