Make the World a Better Place
With all the stress of school, work, money, sports, and our own inventions we often loose sight of the beauty of life and our ability to make the world a better place, hence my New Year’s Resolution.
At my school, Stonington High School in Stonington, Conn., we have a program called Bear Buddies.
Bear Buddies is a program where students come in and interact with our special needs program. I adore being apart of this program and I almost feel it a privilege just to be able to be apart of the kid’s lives.
The special needs program itself is called TLC and it’s run by Mrs. Toole, an incredible educator and person. Bear Buddies is a program that allows the TLC students to interact socially and feel closer to the school and its other students.
It’s been a extremely busy week for me coming back from break and I was incredibly stressed about the homework I had to do – figuring out chemistry, three other freshmen interested in joining BB, and ironically I was trying to figure out my next blog post topic.
At that moment at 11:49 there wasn’t enough time in the day. I was going to go to the library and then I couldn’t take it. I usually go to the TLC room at least two or three times a week during our hour lunch break at SHS, and I hadn’t seen my two closest TLC friends Joey and Tyler since our Bear Buddies Christmas Party on December 18th.
I brought my three new freshmen in to meet Mrs. Toole, and then seeing the faces of Joey, Tyler, Laura, Liv, and so on just let me forget my homework, forget my stress and see the beauty in life.
It was a bit of an enlightenment for me, I’m sure one of a couple to come in 2010. But it brought me to think just how beautiful life was, and in a weird way I thought of innovation. I thought of innovation because innovation, the ability create, brings joy to people, makes life easier, and is a beautiful thing itself.
I saw innovation in the wide-lit eyes of Joey, who was eager to go shoot hoops with me and other Bear Buddies in the gym (he’s got quite the jump shot).
So this brings me to my New Year’s Resolution. I’m going to go to school, play hard on the field and court, and most importantly invent with the mindset that I’m doing it because it’ll make people happy.
I won’t always know who, but I’ll do my best to make sure that it is someone. My New Year’s Resolution is that personal gain for money or a nice sentence on a résumé is out the window and personal gain for the world is in. When I say personal gain, I pretty much mean inventing, so 2010’s task for Devin White is to invent to make people happier, make the world a better place.
TLC and Bear Buddies, thanks for the inspiration.
Let’s Show the World…Don’t Stop Thinking
Devin White
