Learning to do Enough - a Starthrower Journey by Ruby

Learning to do Enough - a Starthrower Journey by Ruby - December 2019 Scholarship Essay

I am proud to be a Starthrower Fellow for an organization called Letters of Love. Letters of Love has a special place in my heart as an organization dedicated to sending letters to youth refugees internationally run by people I respect deeply. A few years ago, I’m not sure it would have been quite so meaningful.

In the summer of 2018, I attended a camp called Seeds of Peace, an identity-based political dialogue program in Maine. By introducing me to people far less privileged than myself and people from very different viewpoints, Seeds of Peace altered my mentality about community service: it taught me that I do not have to change everything to change something.

Previously, I was stuck in a rut with my anxiety getting the best of me - it had me convinced I wasn’t good enough, that because I could not save everyone, my efforts to help were futile. I knew, after Seeds of Peace, I needed to conquer that inhibitory mindset; I joined Letters of Love.

Before Seeds, Letters of Love may have seemed to me “unimportant” because it is not completely world-changing, but I now understood that it had to be important because there is a role for everyone, and that can’t always be a life-saving one. Through working with Letters of Love, though, I’ve realized something even more novel: it is world-changing. I was being selfish before. The world had meant my world; I understand now, finally, it means each person’s world. So if I can do something that changes one person’s world, then together, we can change everyone’s world.