What is progress? No matter what sort of progress you're talking about - social progress, scientific progress, progress with that book you're writing - you're talking about going forward. Moving ahead. Being, learning, or doing better than you've done before. If it's not better, it's not progress. If you're not doing better at writing your novel, you're not progressing. If society goes backwards, discriminates based on race again, that's not progress. If science isn't coming up with new ideas, new and better ways of doing things - that's not progress. Progress is becoming better - ending all discrimination, finding better medicines, learning more than you knew before. Progress is moving forward - being further along than you were before, building on what's come before to reach new heights.
Progress can be personal - furthering your career, or making progress on cleaning your house or writing your term paper - and anyone can do it. Progress can be public - laws ending discrimination, society ending its obsession with thin - and anyone can do it, too. It all starts with one person, one idea, and the drive and means to spread that idea. You can write to your senator. You can discuss it with your classmates or coworkers. You can blog on the internet. Regardless of what you do, you must take action, because progress is reliant on us to further it. It doesn't happen on its own.
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