Use Your Voice

The only way to create something that is uniquely you is to use your voice.

Now, a voice isn't just talking or even writing.  Voices can be music or art.  They can be physics and math.  They can be science experiments and research.  They can be machines and inventions.  They can even be baking, gardening, or exercising.  The key to having a voice, then, seems to be sharing it.  Because all of these things, if kept solely to yourself and for yourself, while they may be a pleasure and bring you personal happiness, don't really speak to the world.  It is only when we share these things with others that our voices--the ones that make us uniquely us, can be heard.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew this.  He chose, rather than to keep his knowledge and his hopes and dreams to himself, to share his vision with others.  He wanted to make the world a better place.  Was he perfect?  No.  But he didn't stop trying just because he had failings.  He talked, and he wrote until the very end.

I have this weird, recurring vision of myself as becoming homeless.  I see myself soliciting money, not just to eat, but so that I can go into a dollar store and get some sidewalk chalk.  I want to write messages on the sidewalks that inspire goodness in people.  Slogans like, "Be kind to one another."  And "Keep Going!"  I suspect if I ever do become homeless I'll have more to worry about than this, and I may be far more jaded than I am now living comfortably as I do.  But I guess I just don't want the people who are seen as the least of us to be overlooked--to be considered less than a person.  And I guess I hope those little sidewalk messages would inspire people who see them to maybe also, then, see me.

The thing is, we all have a voice that is uniquely our own, and sharing it with the world--even if it's just writing into the void or posting pictures of the things you make or taking your instrument outside and letting it sing for a while, or sidewalk chalking slogans--even if no one seems to notice, that is something you've shared with the world, a part of yourself, whole and true.  And maybe it will make the world a little better.

That is my hope for all of you: may your voice make the world a better place.