"The Ones Who Change The World" // A thing that is meant to be a persuasive speech but is more like the ramblings of a lunatic (or a dreamer)

So I wrote this Thing for my English language class at school - it's meant to be a persuasive speech. I was going to do a different topic to this, I'd made a plan for it in school with the different techniques I'd use and everything, but when I sat down to actually write it I realised that I didn't actually have much to say about my first topic (I'm not really as passionate about it as I first thought), and I was really inspired to write something on this other topic. So me being the maverick I am, I scrapped my first topic and all the planning I'd made for it, and jumped straight into this new one.

I... can't even say how much I loved writing this. I loved it so much. It's an idea that's been going round my head for a while now, and actually putting into words, actually turning it into something that I can share with the rest of the world, meant so much to me. I just sat down and let the words flow and it was the best feeling.

I'm going to have to make it shorter than it is - it's meant to be 750 words or less and this is over 1K, but I wanted to share the whole thing before I actually edited it. That said, it's not actually edited, so it's probably not perfect. But again, I wanted to share it in this genuine, unedited, heartfelt state, even if it's not technically brilliant.

Reading through it now, I'm not so sure that it's really a persuasive speech - I think a better description for it would be "the ramblings of a lunatic".

Or a dreamer.

Enjoy, kids.

                                                                                               

The Ones Who Change The World

When we’re children, there’s nothing to hold us back. No barriers, no limits, no doubts or fears or worries or tears. “Follow your dreams,” they tell us, “you can achieve anything,” they say, “there’s nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it,” they declare – and we believe them; we make our plans, we let our imaginations run wild, we let our imaginations run limitless, and we dream of ruling the world, of changing the world, of living in a better world of our own creation. And we believe that it is possible, we believe that it will certainly happen; the possibility that it might not never even enters our minds. Because when we’re young, no-one tells us that there are things we can’t do. No-one tells us that we have limits. No-one tells us that our dreams are too far-fetched or unrealistic. We are allowed to dream, and we are allowed to dream of whatever we want, and there is nothing, there is nothing, there to stop us.

But then we grow up, we grow a little older, and this changes. Suddenly, they are no longer telling us that we can achieve whatever we want. “Aren’t you too old for those childish dreams?” they say, “shouldn’t you have more realistic aspirations?” they tell us, “it’s time for you to face reality and face the truth and face the world and forget your imaginings,” is what they declare.

Oh, they don’t say it in those words. They don’t say it outright. In fact, they don’t say it at all. They keep saying the same things that they said before; they keep telling us to follow our dreams, to hold on to our hope, to never stop believing we will get where we want to go. But the difference is that they now judge which ambitions are acceptable and which are not. Which ambitions are realistic, and which should be abandoned, because they will never come to pass. Which ambitions are suitable to strive for, and which are better left buried and forgotten.

“Achieve good GCSE grades,” they say, “get into a good sixth form and pass your A-levels,” they say, “go to a good university,” they say, “be ambitious enough to succeed,” they say, “be ambitious enough to go into a dull and joyless job where you are paid a fortune every year,” they say, “be ambitious enough to forget how to dream, forget how to hope, forget what life is really all about.”

And that’s what people do. Most people, anyway. They let go of their childhood dreams, forget their wild aspirations, forget the hope that they will one day be able to make a difference in the world, and they settle for the dull, humdrum, unambitious ambitions that society deems acceptable.

So at the end of the day – “Follow your dreams”? They’re nothing but hollow, empty words, ringing with the echoes of disillusionment and loss.

But not all people follow that path. Not all of us. Some of us hang onto our dreams. Some of us never stop believing that we can make a difference. Some of us refuse to believe that our lives are destined to be insignificant. Some of us refuse to believe that we cannot aim for the stars and achieve exactly what we want to achieve. Some of us refuse to believe that we cannot be extraordinary.

We’re the dreamers, the visionaries, the romantics, the make-believers; the ones brave enough to defy the norm, the ones brave enough to follow our hearts. We’re the creatives. The rebels. The mavericks. The outcasts. The revolutionaries. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who never fit in. The ones who look around us and see a different world, a better world, superimposed over the world that we see with our eyes. The ones who will do whatever it takes to bring this world into existence.

You may think that you are not one of these people. That you can never be one of these people. That we are only a select special few.

But guess what?

You can be one these people. You can be one of these visionaries. You can.

You only need to start believing.

You only need to hold on to your dreams.

Because it might be hard, it might seem impossible at times, it might seem impossible when the rest of the world is telling you that you’re deluded, when they’re telling you that you should stop imagining, that you should grow up and face the cold hard truth of reality, that you should accept your place as ordinary and unimportant in the grand scheme of things, that you should stop dreaming. But you should never listen.

Because they can try and dissuade us, they can ridicule us and laugh at us, they can tell us we’re crazy, they can refuse to believe us – but there is one thing that they cannot do. That they can never do.

And that is ignore us.

Because we’re important. Because us visionaries and dreamers, us romantics and make-believers, us idealists and future-seers – we’re the ones who bring about progress in our societies. We’re the ones who are capable of thinking outside the box and seeing what an ideal world could look like. We’re the ones who see a brave new world inside our minds; we’re the ones who dare to believe that it is possible to create. We’re the ones who bring on the tidal wave of change, to sweep up the old injustices of the past and take them far away, and to bring in the new peace and harmony of the future. We’re the ones who bring on the revolution. We’re the ones who change the world.

We may not rule the world. But we’re the ones who drive it forward. We’re the ones who keep it moving.

So listen to me when I say: never stop dreaming. Never stop believing. Never lose hope. Because your dreams are beautiful and they’re powerful and the world needs them. The world needs your hope. The world needs you.

- Andrea