The World Ends with You

Day 25: The World Ends With You*

Today I was fortunate enough to get a chance to converse with @EdKressy and @miketorrey in today’s student huddle. I forgot exactly what the Scott Perry(TM) prompt was, but I began talking about what I hoped to get out of my creative craft. I told the two fellows that my dream was to become my own hero, and in my heroic tale and escapades, meet others in my journey and inspire them to become their own heroes as well. Mike caught me off guard by asking what was stopping me from achieving that status, and my gut reaction was to reply with fear. It was comfortable to stay exactly where I was now, and Ed followed-up with explaining that humans are hard-wired to want to stay in their comfort zone for survival. The adventurers who wandered out into the night found themselves lost to the forest or careening over a cliffside they never saw coming.

What does it mean to become a real-life hero? That question was first posted to me by my dad’s best friend whom I had the blessing to meet for the first time during a family vacation. At first we were livid that my dad had invited essentially a stranger to one of the few intimate times we can spend together as a family, but after less than a day he had fit right in. Marcial was his name, and he had a really amazing way of making the people around him talk louder, laugh louder, and just be more open and receptive to enjoying all the little moments we were living in. He came off like such a run-of-the-mill guy, what was he doing differently to shape the world around him so positively?

“You are already a hero”, he told me as we took a moment of respite on the rooftop of the small apartment complex we were renting at the heart of Mexico City. It is tradition to have “real talk” in Latino families as we sit around a common table to share stories as well as break bread (or copious amounts of Corona as our stereotype suggests). Marcial said that I was living the life that every kid from the El Salvador countryside dreamed of: I got to live in America, go to college, get a great job, meet all kinds of people, travel all over the world, and have the freedom to be everything they could not. “How does that make me a hero?” I inquired back. Then it all hit me at once: I was inspiring people to live a life better than where they already were. That El Salvadorans can be successful in America. He smiled as I realized the answer, and continued to say that my work was not done. To really complete my role as a hero, I would have to elevate those around me to actually reach their full potential.

The idea churned a hole in my stomach, like a fate I never asked for was suddenly thrust upon me. I asked what someone as ordinary as I could do to even achieve a fraction of my fate, and Marcial threw his hands in the air and said that part was up to me. We all have special gifts, we just have to figure out how to use them. For Marcial, he is working on a website with my dad so that the people of their hometown in Lolotique have an outlet to communicate with their American counterparts and the wilder world around them. For me, my journey has just begun, and this Creative’s Workshop is the first stepping stone towards the many futures that are yet to be.

To quote another famous author in our very own workshop, @DerekDodds beautifully wrote the following in one his dailies:

Our responsibility begins with the power to imagine. Imagination moves us towards creating better circumstances for ourselves and for others in a time not yet arrived. To imagine or not to image is a choice, and the repercussions of not imagining may lead to a less fulfilling life. Our actions dictate where our lives lead, and we cannot blame others for things we never imagined.

The lives we live can only be as big or small as we imagine ourselves to be. Whether we are the hero of our hometown, our countrymen, our family, our friends, or no one in particular, it all comes down to one focal point: our understanding of ourselves, and that the world ends with you.

Completed unrelated game inserted here :wink:

@dragon @homeroom11