I am sitting at a friend's dinner table when her parents ask me what my plans are after college. I dunno, I reply with enough enthusiasm to give you a hernia. I was thinkin' maybe the Peace Corps or something.
Everyone around the table explodes in laughter. Maybe it's the thought of me not showering for days or lying on a cot somewhere between Laos and Hell's Kitchen that incites this reaction. Maybe they have never heard of someone spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an education only to "waste" a year doing something for people he or she might never see again. Or maybe I just had something in my teeth.
Life tends to put young people into these situations, where something you want to do and something you're expected to do clash in the style of a 1930's gangster flick:
"Look, see. I'm going to count to 10, and you're going to hand over your soul, see? And no one gets hurt, see?"
This conversation, along with many others, prompted such a level of decisiveness in my mien (along with a certain level of indifference and despondence) that I've been forced to coin a term for it: Active-citizen-o-phobia. Before I continue, it is important to mention a few things about being a so-called active citizen and its rather ambiguous definition.
If someone came to me before the college application process and asked me if I was an active citizen, I would have responded affirmatively, citing the facts that I enjoy perambulation, that I attend school, and that when I turned eighteen, I planned on voting. My answer stemmed from the definitions of "active" and "citizen" I was accustomed to hearing: active being "prone to action," and citizen being a resident of a particular area.
When the fat envelopes came in the mail, I donned a new perspective. All of a sudden, people were asking me about what I saw as active citizenship, and for some reason, I just didn't think that walking alone - my old definition - was impressive enough. I suppose "citizen" could be extended to being a global citizen, right? So ... they're asking me what I plan on doing to become active ... in the world?
Bingo. All of a sudden, I was expected to be active in the world?! What the heck?!
Now, you may be thinking, "Olivia. You don't have to be active in the world to be an active citizen. You just have to be able to make any kind of contribution, no matter how small, to your community."
How nice! That seems easy enough. Here's the problem: I'm a teenager. Chances are you are too. I like to think in extremes. My life is either extremely awesome or extremely sucky, and I haven't been able to find a happy medium since I was out of diapers.
So, whether or not the creators of the term wanted it to have global implications, by uttering it into the ear of a teenager, it has officially been taken to the farthest extreme imaginable. Have you ever noticed the epistemology of this column? I'm never just scared. I'm phobic.
So, post-realization, I have a slight problem on my hands. The gods of college admissions and fables of olde favor global citizenship. My parents do not. I think in extremes. Help!
The funny thing about it is that I do not have a problem at all. We have a misconception that being an active global citizen means you have to go to some other part of the world and purify water or pass out condoms, when in fact, being an active member of your community or voting or just being a kind person qualifies. Plato agrees with me in his "Apology."
While I would very much enjoy the idea of directly helping the underprivileged, it really wasn't cut out for me. I don't think I'm the only one that feels this way. The funny thing is that it feels like sacrilege just saying it. It is inconvenient for me to help the underprivileged.
There's another fear that rears its ugly head while on the topic of this matter: You can't really help others until you've helped yourself. You know when you are on a plane, and the flight attendant tells you to make sure you have put your own oxygen mask on before helping others with theirs?
Maybe the best approach to this active citizen story is to help yourself, and make sure that you are secure in your own standing in the world before reaching out to others.
Therefore, I leave you with this: do not let active citizenship scare you. You may not be ready yet to save the world, and that's okay. You always have tomorrow.
