Still Fighting...

A few years ago I found myself looking through my high school yearbook and found the most interesting note from an old friend.  It said, “You are the most fight-for-your-rights person I know”.  When I was in high school I spent an inordinate amount of time fighting the injustice I saw everywhere.  I was idealistic and believed that I could make a difference with my words and my voice.  I find myself, years later, feeling rather hoarse.  
It’s been 12 years since I graduated from high school.  Since then, I have graduated from college.  I taught for six years.  I have developed relationships with those around me.  I have also voiced my opinions about the state of this world, but after spending as much time as I have screaming about the endemic issues that plague our society, I found myself exhausted and almost to the point of giving up.  I sat and watched our country elect a man who is the epitome of the things I fight against: greedy, dishonest, racist, ignorant, hateful.  Rather than taking this platform to talk about politics, I write today to hopefully inspire something better.
The sun is shining today, and it is shining on each and every one of us.  So take an opportunity today to speak with someone new.  Talk to someone who is a different gender, race, religion, sexual orientation.  Actually, don’t just talk.  Listen.  Something that we have lost in this moment in history is our ability to listen and learn.  Each year, a student inevitably asked me if history repeats itself.  Each year I would tell them, yes, it absolutely does.  However, history only repeats itself because we have the ability and the stubbornness to ignore it.  Look back in history and it is rife with struggle, loss, war, destruction, pain.  We repeat those mistakes because hatred is easy.  Ignorance is bliss.  But what if we chose to listen?  What if we chose to look on the past and choose to make a change, to make a difference?  What if we looked back on all the destruction and loss and chose the most powerful thing of all?  What if we chose to love?
In today’s modern times, people think of love as two people on a movie screen, kissing in the rain.  However, love is so much more than that.  To choose love is:


  • To listen to those around you.
  • To respect people even if they may have a different opinion than you.  
  • To wilfully reject ignorance, even when it hurts.  
  • To fight, even when it seems like you may lose, just because it is the right thing to do.
  • To stand for something.  

Maybe I’m naive, and maybe this seems childish, but the simple lesson is to do the right thing.  We see it constantly in the movies and television shows, however, we miss it in our everyday lives.  So today, no matter what you’re doing, don’t just let the sun shine down.  Let the lightness of today come from you, too.  Talk to someone you don’t know.  Appreciate the different opinions.  Have a real conversation.  Take the opportunity to talk with someone and not just talk at someone.  Take this opportunity to make a difference in this world.  If every single person who reads this takes a chance and actually communicated today, I think that would make today a much better one.  How’s that for fighting for your rights?

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