I’m a big advocate for community service. Back in the fall of 1997, I attended a leadership conference/brunch with nine other classmates at the Shangri-La hotel in Singapore. We listened to Colin Powell give a speech about how community service should be mandatory in all high schools. His example of this was in the Maryland district schools where every student must perform at least 75 hours of community service in order to graduate from high school.
After this leadership breakfast conference, our group of 10 approached Mr. Powell and shook his hand. Our student council president asked if he could be our guest speaker at our commencement the following June.
Mr. Powell politely declined, but joked that if we had our commencement ceremony next week, then he would be able to make it. It astounded me how he already knew that he couldn’t come back to Asia that following June … only several months away. It showed how he was incredibly focused and driven.
That was about five years ago.
Today, Powell is the secretary of state of the United States. He addresses the United Nations and quite recently went on a three-nation tour in Asia trying to re-establish ties with other countries, etc.
This “looming” war in Iraq and the Middle East situation … well, frankly, it stinks. As my high school history teacher, Mr. Imperi, wisely stated, “If Buddha, Jesus Christ, Allah and God were all looking down on Earth, they would be shaking their heads in disgust, asking, ‘Why are they still fighting this old war?'”
It’s so true.
We must separate accidents and environmental disasters from intended plots (such as the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks) and educate ourselves on issues such as world history, religion and politics … and of course, literature and poetry.
I must confess that I truly enjoyed my time at Boston University. You may think that I’m nuts for saying that. But I matured and flourished during my four years in Boston. Not only was I enriched by the plethora of knowledge that I gained, but I also fell in love and, at present, find myself content and high on life.
Because in the end, that’s all I want: to be happy and to be in love.
I think that is what we all truly want out of life.
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