by D-Source

Created on: September 13, 2009

The question is: Can one person change the world? My answer is: Every person changes the world. Consider the following fictional, yet possible story:

A little boy is walking to school and suddenly has a reflex reaction. He quickly reaches out and grabs a little girl's arm who is just about to step into the street and be killed by a speeding car. The little girl grows up and becomes a doctor who saves 100 lives in her career. The lives she saves range in race, nationality, gender and occupation. One of the lives she saved was that of another doctor who was visiting The US from China and who will go on to develop a new process for treating certain forms of Cancer. She also had three kids of her own. One grew up to become an engineer who invented a new type of engine that reduces world wide oil consumption. You get the idea.

The philosophy of Six Degrees of Separation would seem to apply. This is an idea that says each person on the planet is separated by only 6 other people. For Example: A man with Swine Flu, who decided to deliver a relatively unimportant package and unfortunately, the virus to UPS, where the lady behind the counter passes both to the docks and so on...., until both reach the man who loads the plane headed for Europe. He shakes the hand of someone on the plane and that person delivers the package and the virus to another nation where the very first European is exposed to the same virus that the man in Dallas has. This man, unknowingly, has been impacted by the actions of a man across the world. Now, it seems to me; that this principle couldn't possibly apply to every single word we say or action we take, but it does seem perfectly logical that it applies enough to legitimize my belief that a 78 year old man, regardless of his occupation or social and economic status, has had an enormous impact on the world that is un-measurable by man.

This man may not have been Martin Luther King (One Man), Ghandi (One Man) or any of the hundreds or thousands of people who have positively changed the world or who have left the world a better place than it was when they entered it. He may not have been Hitler (One Man) or any of the people who have had a less than positive impact on the world. But never-the-less, this man entered this world and somebody probably smiled and he did something either nice or mean to someone who reacted in a way that changed something or somebody. He went somewhere and changed somebody's mind about something or wiped up something so somebody who would do something important wouldn't slip and break their neck. Maybe he did the wrong thing one day that hurt someone who would have traveled somewhere and did something special or great, otherwise. How many lives can a man impact in 78 years? How many ripples across a seemingly endless sea of people has this man set in motion; like waves across an ocean or like millions of dominoes lined up to fall?

There are no insignificant people! There is no man or woman who doesn't count! The question isn't can I change the world! The question is how many ways will I change the world? The question is also; will I do every thing within my power to make sure that how I change the world will be positive, instead of negative?

One man's vote does count! One man's voice can moves people! One man's actions can make things happen; that causes other things happen! One man can change the direction or a young man's life who may change the direction of many! And there are countless other ways for one man or woman to change the world. How will you change the world today?

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