She had silk scarves ensconced around her body, stained with exotic colors and feathers, and her earrings glowed brightly against the projector’s screen. This was my seventh-grade science teacher, and featured on the projector was a documentary with Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot. Greta’s voice boomed over the speaker as she collaborated with George Monbiot to highlight the need to protect and use nature to tackle the climate crisis. I was immediately enraptured by the documentary’s thundering music and vivid lighting but most importantly, it was the imagery that piqued my interest. The transformation of a towering picturesque tree into a gnarly, pencil-thin stick caked in ash, and the consistent release of puffs of smoke into the air from the man-made machines. It channeled the importance of restoring our planet more vividly than words scribbled onto paper. After the documentary came to a dramatic halt, my teacher flicked the light switch on and clasped her hands together. She began to tell us how we were the future and why she felt obligated to share this with us. “The future rests on your shoulders which is why It’s essential that you guys learn about this so you’ll make informed decisions when you’re older,” she said. I knitted my eyebrows in confusion. Part of me agreed with her; our generation needed to be cognizant of what danger lurked ahead, but why should we take the initiative in the future? Why not take initiative for the future right now? I thought of my photography blog that I had forged from scratch. It highlighted all my hobbies, from gardening to eating my indigenous  meals, but what purpose did it serve besides highlighting  me? I started thinking about adopting  a more activist tone to my blog with e all the featured photos related to issues concerning our planet.  Immediately, the gears in my head started turning and the instant I arrived home, I launched myself at my desk and spent the rest of the afternoon researching relevant topics that my blog could cover. Since that day, my fingers rarely strayed from the keyboard: I converted my gardening segment to an urban sprawl segment and my food segment to a food deficits segment. Seeing the rapid expansion of cities and towns having a toll on earth’s gardens resonated with me as I had cultivated my own mini garden with my father, and I couldn’t imagine anyone’s actions jeopardizing our six years of labor. This same sentiment adhered to the food portion. Some immigrants, like my mother, had to forage for scraps or work long grueling hours in the sun to put food on the table. The recent fluctuating temperatures had not just disrupted food quality, but the availability as well, thus reducing agricultural productivity. In simpler terms, this meant that more people were put in similar positions as my mother and her family. I began to bring more exposure to my blog in front of various gatherings, whether it’d be through my upper school chapel talk on taking initiative or highlighting it during our science class discussions. So, with that, I encouraged people to think and understand the crises threatening our world. I played as an advocate in awareness about resolutions to these quandaries. I also helped others connect the dots of urban sprawl and food deficits. I’m determined to inspire more people to integrate their passions with community service. That’s the kind of initiative I take for the future, rather than waiting for the future to come to me.