Dec 7 - Just a Moment

I took Microeconomics once upon a time. I don't remember much of what I learned in the class, but I DO remember my teacher, Dana Thompson. He is infamous...literally. He was arrested soon after I graduated for embezzlement and was sentenced to 18 months of prison (I'm pretty sure that means I should take what I learned in that class with a large grain of salt). I spent 4 hours a week with this teacher for three classes during my time in college. That comes out to approximately 120 hours of class time. It's amazing to me that those 120 hours were easily overshadowed in the moment I read the article about his sentencing in the newspaper. 

I saw this post on the Humans of New York Facebook page today:

The whole purpose of my trip to Turkey and Jordan was to interview refugees who had been approved for American resettlement. So when this couple showed me the letter saying they’d been ‘deferred,’ I was a bit confused. But I continued the interview anyway. As I learned the rest of the couple’s story, I noticed my UNHCR facilitator typing on her phone. After a few minutes, she came over to me and showed me the screen. It was a text message from the main office. It said: ‘They’ve been approved. Would you care to tell them?’ So it was my great honor to inform this couple that they were going to America. This portrait was taken thirty seconds after they learned the news.

Our actions change things. A lifetime of work, whether good or bad, can be undone in a single moment. That's scary. And exciting. It means that each moment we experience has the potential to create earth-shattering change. I often feel like my ability to change the world is incredibly limited. I don't have that much money or power, and my circle of influence just isn't that big. I convince myself that changing the world will take more resources than I have. Turns out, that's just not true. The only resource I really need is to change the world is that one, magical focused moment. Just ONE moment.