Why?

It has always been my goal to change the world. Obviously it's childish, but I think in the back of everyone's mind; it's their dream too. As little kids, you want to create your own country on some little island because then everything would happen the way you know is best, and you could change the world. When we get a little older, we know this is beyond unlikely. Next, we think we can become president or prime minister of your country and bring it to a golden age. Once we grow up a little more, you realize two things about becoming the president.
1) I'm never going to be the president.
2) Even if I work hard, become well educated, raise the money, raise the support, and miraculously become the president (even orphans like Obama have done it once in a while), I can't really change the world. The president has to follow the rules the rest of us do. He is kept down by all of the obstructionist congressmen and senators that disagree with him, no matter how genius and revolutionary his strategies may be. In the end, the President has to make enough compromises that he has no more power than the rest of us.
At this point we may go through the stages of grief until we come to acceptance and decide to just be happy. Is it really that simple? Happiness is not an of/off switch. How can I be happy when all I see around me is a world in dismay, a world I can't change?
The first thought that occurred to me was to leave the world. I can't exactly go live on Mars, but, at least I could go somewhere that the world in dismay did not occur to me. I would run to the deep wilderness and there, I would live out the rest of my days. However, it would only be a matter of time until someone found me, or the wilderness I lived in would be destroyed. Then I would be in the exact world I was in before, but without money, a job, an education, or any other way of starting over. I couldn't keep going from forest to forest, because I would be without the means of getting there after the first venture.
Once that idea failed, I searched for a more aggressive approach. My second idea was to start a revolution. But from even the most basic history, I know that that too would be a failed venture. Whether a revolution is started on the basis of radical reform on religious, political, or economic grounds, it serves only to create the same problems by a new hand and under a different name.
It is obvious that I'm not the first person to ever have a crisis of meaning in their life, so I searched for what other people do. They grow up and have kids. There was my third idea. Even if i can't change the political structure of the world, if I have kids, and they have kids, and their kids have kids, I have changed the world. Until the end of time, I will have left an impact in the form of children.
And if that's not enough? I know I'm not smart enough to discover something incredible, I'm not artistically talented enough to produce a classic (of music, art, or film), and I will never be an olympian. I refuse to become another Unabomber. Not only did his strategy harm many possibly innocent people, he was altogether ineffective. No, I couldn't be a terrorist, no matter how pure my intentions. My fourth idea was realistic. I could start a wing in a hospital or a college. I'm a rather successful person, and I believe that if I continue to put in the effort that I currently do, that is completely within my reach. It would leave a significant mark on the world that would hold my name and most likely outlast the human species itself. And yet it does not satisfy the urge that the illusion of presidency once did.
At this point I wondered why I cared at all. Despite the annoyance that a world I did not agree with might pose, it is not altogether impossible that I might be able to live out a normal life and be content. There would be moments of depression and moments of bliss, but I would probably be generally happier than sad. The question no longer became why should I care, but why live? As Camus said, "Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?" Eventually, everyone will die with either choice, so what difference does it make if it's today or in 80 years? Of course I believe suicide is idiotic. It is an utterly selfish act, to leave your friends and family miserable. Beyond that, it is like a cheat of life. It is the coward's answer to challenge. Frankly, I don't want to drink coffee either, but the point still stands. With the line between life and death so thin, I don't want to stand with life for no more reason than suicide being the unacceptable alternative.
I'm not searching for some universal meaning to life. I don't believe in any sort of intervening god, and I don't actually believe that there is any reason humans have any more meaning in their existence than the termites in their wood. However, I am thoroughly convinced that there is a reason to live. Beyond that, I believe there is a simple reason to live. Between the apes who likely do not question their existence and the overly evolved humans that question it all too much, there must have been creatures who questioned their existence on a primal basis. To have answered themselves, the answer too must be primal. And yet as the rationale to refute the simple solution contorted to become as convoluted as it is comprehensive, the question has remained the same, and I believe the answer on the other side of this twisted rationale must be too.
Somewhere near the beginning of this interminably long (and admittedly both self-important and pretentious) rant, I suggested that the simplest solution was just to be happy. However for me, saying this is the destination. To be there without the journey is pointless. The journey is the only way to truly cast out the alternatives. To remove any "what ifs" that fester in your mind. There is no secret to life, and saying that you just want to be happy helps nothing. I can't tell you how to be happy. I can't tell you how that the world is a place of wonder and that if you work as hard as you can you can change the world. If you ask yourself why the hell should I get up today and go to work, I can't tell you that either. But at the very least least, I can promise you that there is an answer.