I Want to Save the World

What it means to care when everything feels broken

Jon Soto

Oct 26, 2025

To the Deep Thinkers,

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Everyone wants to save the world, and then they realize that they can barely save themselves.

Each day I scroll, read, and absorb a new wave of chaos—wars, greed, corruptions, and collapse—and each story only makes me feel smaller.

I want to make a difference, but I’m exhausted. I’m soaked in cynicism and feel powerless to do or say anything that could possibly move the world in a better direction.

The house is burning, and I don’t see a way out. Some people don’t even try to escape. They don’t try to put out the fire. Instead, they cast blame and think that alone makes them righteous.

Everybody’s yelling, but nobody is really listening.

Some still have hope; others think it’s all already over.

I’m just a regular guy who’s always wanted to do extraordinary things. I’ve been a dreamer and a cynic, the one who wants to make the world better, and the same one who wonders What’s the point? That’s the tension I live with.

I want to explore the quiet erosion of hope inside the person who wants to make the world better, but can’t get out of their own way. Because I relate to this person. I am this person. The hope is deteriorating, but it hasn’t vanished completely. If it had, I don’t know if I’d still be writing. Honestly, I don’t think I’d be doing anything at all.

So, even though I feel hopeless and powerless, something inside me keeps me going, though truth be told, I don’t know what for.

We talk a lot about how constant scrolling makes us anxious. But beyond anxiety, I feel something deeper. I don’t just feel anxious—I feel…inconsequential. That’s the best way I can describe it. Navigating the endless carousel of content makes me feel insignificant.

Maybe I’m just projecting. Maybe I should get off my soapbox. The more I scroll, the more I tell myself I’m just trying to stay informed. But really, I’m trying to bridge the gap between control and chaos, as if more information will somehow make me feel less hopeless.

Since I was a kid, I’ve loved superheroes. My mom wouldn’t buy me comics, but she’d take me to the public library, where I’d check out stacks of comics and graphic novels.

I wanted to be like Static Shock—saving the day, nerdy but still kind of cool. I also wanted to be like Robin from the 2003 Teen Titans era: no powers, just integrity, a devotion to justice, and a competitive spirit nobody could truly match.

As a kid, I lived in my imagination, trapped in my mind. I built stories where I saved the world, rescued my friends and family, defeated villains, and protected those who couldn’t protect themselves.

A young boy wanting to be a superhero isn’t unique, and the desire probably doesn’t come from some noble instinct or higher calling. Kids just like superheroes.

But I still want to save the world, and I feel like a fool for it. How can anyone save the world when they’re still at war with themselves?

I can’t get out of my own way. I can’t stay disciplined, can’t face my demons, can’t even fully commit to someone I’ve been with for years. I’m no good to the world like this, and I know it.

I’ve gone from the boy who wanted to save everyone to the man who can’t even save himself.

And somewhere between these two versions of me, the world has gotten louder, while my will to fight is fading.

You Can’t Save the World Until You Save Yourself

A friend once told me that the world doesn’t need a savior; it needs people who still care. Maybe, he said, saving the world isn’t about fixing everything, but about tending what’s within reach.

The body. The mind. The people we love. The small choices within each day. It’s about looking forward with courage instead of pretending the carnage doesn’t exist.

As I write this essay, I think about this friend and how I’ve often thought he was too idealistic.

Maybe he’s right, though. Maybe I’ve spent so much time mourning the world I can’t change that I’ve neglected the parts I still can.

Our sphere of influence can often be a very effective counter to despair. Because despair and apathy are the real diseases, the ones that bring everything crashing down.

You can even witness it happening in real time. I’ve started to notice a dimness in people’s eyes, like the will to care is burning out from overuse. I wonder if they see the same thing in my eyes.

We’re tired. Most of us trade our time for a paycheck that disappears into rent, food, transportation, and healthcare. We’re physically and emotionally spent. Overwhelmed by information. Running on fumes, trying to hold on. For what? For more empty promises? For more hollow displays of we’re-all-in-this-together-talk from insulated celebrities and rich people?

I see the protests. I hear the calls for revolution. But how do we turn a system on its head and mobilize like the revolutions of history when so many are distracted, insulated, or too burned out to care? Honestly, apathy feels almost inevitable.

But we have to care, no? It’s our last line of defense. Once we stop caring, that’s the true Apocalypse. So let the rage burn. Let the tears fall for injustice. Call out the lies when you hear them. Boycott what you can, not just with money, but with your attention.

I get it. I, too, feel the burden of hope. I want to run away. I want it all to go quiet. But I can’t run. I can’t give up because people depend on me—to be here, to endure, to keep showing up.

I’m tired of being resilient, but people depend on me to keep being just that.

Trying To Pour From an Empty Cup

I don’t have a grand plan for healing. But through the years, I’ve become better at recognizing what pulls me back to life, and what pulls me away from it.

The things that keep me apathetic, that isolate me, are usually rooted in escapism.

I wish I had more to offer the world. But maybe what I need right now is to understand where I stand with myself. When all I want to do is crawl under the earth, what can I really give?

When the inner void is at its strongest, I often look to the world for relief. But the world can’t make me whole. I have to pull myself out of the mud. The truth is, I’m most selfish when I feel empty. It’s in that scarcity—when I’m lost in me, me, me—that I’ve made some of my worst decisions. Decisions I still regret.

I know what it’s like to want more, to feel that the world owes you something, to believe something is always missing.

You want to save the world, but you can’t save yourself.
You don’t even know where to start.

Start with the simple things: noticing your emotions instead of running from them. Building habits that ground you.

For me, that looks like the gym. It looks like reading a good book. The sweet smell of the outdoors. Shooting hoops alone.

Of course, things like the gym and reading aren’t magic cure-alls—I know that. But it’s in these small, personal spaces that we shape ourselves into the kind of people strong enough to take on what the world demands of us.

It’s ironic but true: the more I learn to show up for myself, the more capable I become of showing up for everything else.

Save Yourself, and the World May Follow

It’s hard to accept, but you can’t save them all. You can’t even save most. And yet, I still feel the tug to try.

Like I’ve been told, maybe that’s the point: the refusal to look away, the insistence on leading with care even when it feels pointless.

A perfect world will never exist. It’s a sign of hubris to think any one person could create it. It’s not about perfection, but persistence. And it starts at the micro level. One person refusing to give up. One person healing enough to offer love without needing anything in return.

If all I can do is save myself just enough to give something good back to the world—maybe that’s all I ever needed to do.

The noise won’t stop, the chaos won’t either. But I am free to choose: fight or give in. Saving the world might look like figuring out who I want to be, not who I think I’m supposed to be.

And maybe one day, if I can clean up my inner world, I’ll do something that truly makes a difference.