Not Idealistic Anymore - Now It's Possible.

Too many times people will tell me (and many other young people), “You are being too idealist” or “That’s a good idea, but it’s too idealistic”. For the record, I really do understand what they mean. I understand what they are saying, and I appreciate it, too. I really do. I just greatly disagree with it. And here is why: It’s not idealistic if we have everything in place that we need to succeed – it’s simply ‘possible’.

I understand what is idealistic and what is not. If I were to say right now that we need to stop messing around and solve the AIDS crisis this year – that is probably idealistic. If young people were to go to Washington and picket the government to change every light in the world to one of those energy lights – that is probably idealistic. If I was trying to get everyone in the world to donate 20 hours a week to volunteering somewhere – that is probably idealistic. Why are these things idealistic? Because we don’t have the resources or capabilities to do it, because realistically nobody wants it to happen, and because it just doesn’t make full sense in real life.

But too often, people think that any big plan involving social justice is idealistic when it really isn’t. People are too quick to downplay ideas of ending some of the biggest problems in our world – unclean water, starvation, and malaria. They claim that these dreams are just too idealistic.

But I stalwartly deny this.

With all of my being I deny this.

These efforts are not idealistic. For something to be idealistic – that means that it is not even possible. It is a good thought, but it is not realistic because it is not possible. Either we don’t have the resources or the capabilities or it just doesn’t make sense in the real world – one of those things. But with many social justice issues in the world today, this is not the case. We have the ability to make water clean. We have malaria nets. We have enough food and money so that no one will starve. We have the resources, the capabilities, and the desire.

When we have all of these things – the resources, the capabilities, the money, the desire – then the solutions to these problems are no longer idealistic… they are possible.

They are possible.