Joy
to the world! Christmas time is here in the city (and the country, and suburbia
and every place in between). And with Christmas come cookies, lights, trees,
and shopping. Santa and elves and jingle bells. Cold hands, cold noses, cold
faces, cold feet. Hot chocolate, eggnog, and peppermint candy canes. We hear Rudolph, The First Noel, and Hark! The
Herald Angels Sing played at least once an hour to get us in the holiday
spirit. If all that doesn’t simultaneously cheer you and exhaust you, I don’t
know what will.
More
importantly than the bustle is the chance Christmas gives us to pause from the
hecticness of daily life and think about what really matters to us. For me,
that precious opportunity directly follows the biannual crisis that is finals.
After weeks of writing papers, studying until 3am, and drinking so much liquid
energy that I turn into a coffee bean, I usually begin to question the point of
it all. Why do I need to know how to use the statistical program R? Will
knowledge of twelfth century Spanish poetry help me communicate better with my
neighbors? No, probably not. However, this year has taught me some life lessons
that I crucially needed to learn, and Christmas is the perfect opportunity for
me to remind myself of those.
One,
happy people let their passions shape their decisions. I’ve found that the things
I’m most passionate about – Christ, ethically sourced living, and people
– have come to define how I choose to spend my time. Without a passion for
fighting human trafficking and ensuring that the products I buy are ones that
are not made in exploitative conditions, I would never have found CWOW. Working
at Creative Women of the World has been one of the most rewarding, challenging,
and growth-inducing experiences of my life. When I signed up to intern for the
summer, I thought I would be filing papers and sorting emails. How very wrong I
was! Every action, every decision at CWOW is made through our living, breathing
mission: inspiring creative business and marketing solutions for women around
the world seeking to rise out of extreme poverty, human trafficking and
disasters. This little (but growing) nonprofit has shown me that my passions,
focused into a mission, can slowly but surely become world change.
Secondly,
I have learned that passionate people can never work a 9-5 job. There is always
more to do, more to practice, more to perfect. Anyone who has ever worked
at a nonprofit can tell you about the multiple times they’ve woken up in the middle
of the night with a brilliant new idea or spent hours designing a project at
home in front of the TV. Despite the never-ending work, I cannot deny that I
love it. Being part of something important, something that matters to me, is
worth irregular hours. When your life mission coincides with your job’s
mission, you are actually taking your home life to work rather than your work
life home.
Thirdly,
Christmas is about giving to others like God gave Jesus for us, and there is no
better way to give than to use your passions to serve others. At school, I
am most happy and most myself when I can find purpose in my activities. Whether
it’s justifying that Spanish class with the idea that in the future I will be
better able to serve a population that does not share my native tongue or
learning statistical programming because it will help me conduct research about
human trafficking prevention, viewing my daily activities through the lens of
my mission motivates me to always try. I have a burning desire to see an end to
systematic exploitation of the poor, orphans, and widows. I want to see women
rise up, empowered, to become business leaders, politicians, and doctors in
countries where they’ve never had the privilege of an education. I hope that
people will one day understand that buying ethically sourced products is worth
the effort because each dollar spent is yelling “No!” in slavery’s face. I cannot change the world just because I’d
like to, but I can take my passion for these causes and serve the people in my
community in small ways. The smallest gifts can have the largest impact. Just
look at the aftermath of what God left us in a manger.
