What I Could Have Been!
Disclaimer: The credits for the songs quoted (and the title) go entirely to the makers of the musical 'WORKING'. Please don't sue me.
"If I could have been what I could have been, I could have been something…" A lot of people seem to say that, looking back on their life. They didn't take opportunities they wish they had, or made choices they regret now. "If what I could be had been left to me I would have been something…" Some try to blame other people in order to make the guilt seem a little easier to bear, a little lighter to carry. "A tower of strength, a center of power; at ten grand an hour…" But, no matter how much we want the past to change, we can't. What we can do is change our perspective.
"If I could have done what I could have done, I could have done big things!" Many people in the world don't have access to the kind of opportunities we take for granted here. Education is one. "With some luck to do what I wanted to I could have done big things…" A lot of the students here don't care, and only do enough to pass. That isn't fair to the millions of children who have never seen the inside of a school building because there isn't free education where they live. Do you know what they are doing now? Selling drugs, selling their bodies, selling their soul, just so they can make enough to live another day. "Swam a few rivers, climbed a few hills, paid all my bills." They never knew any other way to live. And yet, they thirsted for a better day.
"Now it's just dreams that I'm stuck with!" Four words say it all. Martin Luther King Junior. He fought so hard to change his society to create a better tomorrow for his children. He was assassinated before he could see the dawn of the future he helped to create. "And, hell, that ain't a lot to show!" There are so many examples of dreams that haven't been fulfilled because the community at the time would not allow it to progress, or twisted it so it seemed so vile that there was no other choice but to let it go. "I never got far from the starting line…" So many, many dreams…
"But deep down inside, where it counts, I know that if I could have gone where I could have gone, I could have gone places…" How far do you think George W Bush would have gone if he didn't have so much experience from his father's term as president? "With leeway to go as far as I could go, I could have gone places!" Even if you are adopted, your parents serve as role models and stepping-stones to help you on your way. "To the front of the line; the top of the tier; a long way from here!" The parents that abuse their children and refuse to aid them in life; those are the people that are preventing our future from being all it can be. We are the future.
"Way back then I had ambition!" Every child has the most precious gift of all inside of them. The miracle of life. So much of that life is wasted because more children every day are restricted because of their age or social standing. Too many people are passed off as lunatics when they are later proven as great masterminds. And so they fight. "A lot of stamina and guts! I never took 'no' for an answer." Galileo strived to prove that the sun was in the center of the galaxy; but to no avail. He was tried for heresy by the Catholic Church. "It was tougher to fight all those ifs, ands, or buts." Decades later, we come to find that he was right all along.
"Oh, if I could have been what I could have been, I could have been something! If my destiny had been left to me, I could have been something! If they had just let me go where I was raring to go, when I was raring to go back then! God only knows…what I could have been!" I believe that, no matter who you are or what you could be, you can always improve yourself. Just believing that you can change is an improvement on your outlook on life. Un mejor dia ven dra: a better day will come, if you just believe…