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I was inspired by economics, again, today. It makes me feel worthwhile when I have a moment to remember why I'm doing this economics thing. It's just so frustrating to be so bad at it, now. Sometimes I think that I'm just going to be bad at everything that I do, but then I realize that things work out and my life is going to be what I make of it. Not doing well in college does not change the difference that I can make in the world.

Anyway, I went to a talk tonight and this author (who wrote an econ book that I loved) was saying how he was actually interested in public policy issues--he has his MPA from Princeton and his PhD from the Harris School--and he just sort of fell into economics because he say that economics is what drives policy. That's what I've always thought too. He also said that he is not good at the math of economics, but he always got the intuition. That is also how I feel. I know how/why things happen, I just don't know how to do the regression which explains it. He inspired me. There is so much that I want to do. I am very interested in being a molding force in the world, but I know that I have to understand economics in order to affect true and lasting change.

I sort of know that I can make change if I set my mind to it. My fear, however, is that I will back off when things get hard and I will always look back on my life seeing what I could have done, but didn't. I realize that making true change and being an impacting person can mean so many different things. For example, I could be an incredible mother and wife, and not work outside of the home, and I could still be making change by raising productive, insightful and intelligent children. But, I don't see myself there. Starting a family is something that I am so excited about doing some day, but there is so much that I want to do before that. And, I don't ever want to look back and say that if I could have done it differently, I would.

I will do something big. Something for the grander social justice of the world. I just don't know what it's going to be. I think that I put a lot of pressure on myself in this regard, but only because I know that it is possible.