Changing the world in 25 words or less

Tomorrow my good friend starts her planned preparation for the Portland Marathon. She has been building towards this for a while. I have never fully understood why she decided to or what drives her but I am extremely proud of her. She discovered a goal that drives her and has set a path that will achieve that goal.
Sometimes I wonder why I have never done anything like that. I have little or no ambition, no discernible goals, and no real wish to create any. I often think I am just drifting through what at some point became a purposeless life. I wonder how things got to that point.
There was a time when I had a goal and I was driven to achieve it. That was when I wanted to be a preacher. It was something I could do that would actually make a difference in this world. I even went to school for a little while in Colorado with an eye towards that goal.
I used to preach and teach regularly. I had enough comments to the effect that people were learning from what I had to say that I believe I did some good. Certainly the students who, even now, 5 or 6 years after I last taught, tell me how much they learned from me, they encourage me to look back at something that I had the potential to accomplish.
Sometimes I wonder what happened. Where did I go wrong? How did someone who seriously wanted to help people become someone who actively dislikes most people? Why all the anger and bitterness? I have tried to get rid of it but things keep happening to help me realize that no matter how much I realize people suck...people prove they are even worse than I thought they were.
I think things first went wrong when I tried to take care of another person. The marriage to Andrea was a train wreck from day one. I thought the right thing to do both for them and in the eyes of God was to take Andrea's orphaned brother and sister into our house. That is a decision that would haunt me for the rest of my days no matter what I did.
If we had not done so I would have had to violate my conscience about helping a neighbor in need...which was only accentuated by their being family. It was not like there were a lot of places to go...George, Johnny and Teddy were and as long as I knew them continued to be about the worst pieces of human trash imaginable. Not that their dad was much better...
Taking them in still strikes me, even in retrospect, as the right thing to do. It was that desire to do what was right that started my fall I think. Later incidents with her friend Amy and her nephew Daniel would prove 2 things: one, I had at that time a pretty good heart that genuinely wanted to help others. Two, I was an idiot.
When she had her first affair after just 2 years I should have cut my losses. She demonstrated that her job was more important than her marriage but I stubbornly held to my belief that forgiveness was an attribute. No, it isn't. It is an anchor. I never brought that incident up again for the duration of the marriage. Same with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and for a time the 5th.
But they hurt. I tried very hard to be a good husband. We went on the vacations she wanted, visited the people she wanted, I stopped hanging out with my friends like I wanted...I tried to get her the stuff she wanted but somehow it was just never enough.
And that is what I find with so many people. No matter what you do for them it is never enough. It does not matter how hard you try to do the right thing, people will always screw you.
To this day I am shocked by the responses I still sometimes get about everything that went on with Andrea. Even though she had 5 KNOWN affairs compared to my...let's see, how many is ZERO? Even though she claimed not once, not twice, but three times to have gotten pregnant (by other people, I might add), then miscarried...I took time off work because she was so devastated. Then she said she had never been pregnant. She also said she never had an affair. Then later she said both were true.
I would think it would be pretty clear that I was actually an innocent bystander. Sadly, I have frequently felt the impact of the people who have indicated, sometimes in word and sometimes just with attitude, how wrong I was. All the things I should have done better.
I wonder why I ever cared what people think. People will turn on you, they will hurt you, they will be people.
That is when I realize why I never make goals. What would be the point? To please myself? I am just passing time. I get as much pleasure out of watching a movie or writing a good essay as anything else. I feel no sense of accomplishment over anything. I don't have anyplace i want to go, anything in particular I want to see...I simply "am".
A lot of people want to change the world. I wish them luck. I just hope when they get done changing it they find their efforts were worthwhile. There is really only one change I want to see and that will come soon enough.