We Are The Change We Seek

As President Obama is coming to Ohio State this Sunday, 10/17/10, I find it fitting to base this post off of a quote from him:

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

Too much of the time it seems like people are waiting for others to take the initiative. Some people do not know how to initiate change and do not believe they have the power to do so. This concept seems to spread like a virus through most of society. That is why that when leaders do emerge to take the first step, many people respect the power that they hold. These people then have the opportunity to participate in active citizenship.

Citizenship can take on many forms and many people have differing views of what good citizenship entails. An individual may participate in community service, further the education of the community, involve themselves politically, or participate in community-oriented organizations. This wide variety of ways to participate could be the reason that there is a disconnection between the sense of community that people have and the what they want to result from their actions. Many people's communities are separate from one another. People simply do not conceptualize the whole community that they are apart of. Everyone is connected in some way and each and every one of us has the responsibility to contribute to the well being of humanity even if not everyone realizes it.

There are multiple stages of community, but many communities do not reach the last stage of actual community. Some live in the false sense of pseudocommunity in which harmony is held above controversy with civility and compromises are made that negatively impact the community.  The second stage is chaos in which differing communities have unconstructive struggle in which neither will give way. The third stage before community is organization. In this stage, small fixes are used to overcome hardships, but preventive care is not taken.

There seems to be so much going against the select few people who become leaders. However, the most discouraging obstacle is the people who are not motivated enough to take up the cause as well. This is a problem that many chapters in the Greek Community face here at Ohio State. I have been through this myself as I have grown in my leadership experience. This is a good learning experience, but it is hard to overcome this hardship without the help of others. I felt this way in my first few years and only through the counsel of my other similarly motivated brothers did I gain the experience to become the president of my fraternity and gain the authority to create the change to better my fraternity within the community. We cannot simply wait around for change because it will not occur. We must be the change that we seek.