I hear some of you feeling like if you could just quit your job and change everything, you could be someone and change the world. I wanted to tell you about someone who lived the most mundane life you can imagine but changed the world anyway; his work is famous even now, 150 years later.
The other day in class the discussion was about Gregor Mendel. He was just a monk who did monk things at a monastery. One of his jobs was to help maintain the vegetable garden. How mundane can one's life be, walking around in a robe and spending the days growing the monastery's food?
Mendel didn't complain. He didn't just do his job; he studied and explored it. He kept records and tried different things. His works, published in the 1860s, introduced the world to the science of genetics. His records of his plants' traits and breedings gave us the concept of inheritance, traits, purebred/hybrids, and the idea of the genetic basis of life.
Through genetics, the world can grow better food, making food more affordable. We can address illnesses such as Downs or Tay-Sachs. We can understand drug-resistant germs. Think how many lives are saved.
If a monk in a pea patch can change the world, anyone can.
