(Not) Waiting on the World to Change

It’s a quiet Friday evening, and John Mayer's Waiting on the World to Change just came on.

There was a time I loved this song—really loved it. It was an anthem for those of us who felt small in a big world, who carried good intentions but weren't sure what to do with them.

The lyrics seemed to speak for us: "Me and all my friends / we're all misunderstood / they say we stand for nothing and there's no way we ever could." Back then, it sounded like hope.

But tonight, it strikes a different chord. Listening to it now, years later, something has shifted. The song doesn't feel hopeful anymore—it feels like surrender. Not surrender after a long, hard fight, but a kind of submission that comes before the fight even begins.

The chorus repeats like a meditation in limbo: "So we keep waiting, waiting on the world to change." Over and over. As if waiting were enough. As if the world owed us transformation while we remained safely on the sidelines, hands clean, consciences clear.

Even when the song gestures toward real injustice, it is wrapped in helplessness: "When you trust your television / what you get is what you got / 'cause when they own the information, oh / they can bend it all they want." It's diagnosis without prescription, complaint without commitment. It points to the wound, but refuses to touch it.

It’s not that I now believe in taking the world by the scruff of the neck. I don’t think change comes through sheer force or righteous volume. But I've also come to understand that change rarely arrives while we're standing still.

Oh, and what does the song ultimately hope for? That someday, somehow, "our generation / is gonna rule the population."

Rule—not love.

Rule—not serve.

Rule—not liberate.

What masquerades as hope is simply power deferred, a future that looks suspiciously like the present, just with different names on the office doors.

So, lately, I’ve been vibing more with Cat Power’s take: "What the world needs now / is love, sweet love." Not rule. Not revenge. Not even recognition.

Just the quiet, daily work of care. Of paying attention. Of refusing to look away.

Just love.

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