Freedom Writers and the diary of Anne Frank show such inspiration, bravery and courage and everyone of us look at them and go ‘Wow. They went through a lot. They were fighting a war’. Let me ask everyone this. Aren’t we fighting a war? Aren’t we all fighting an undeclaired war? We might not be using violence. We might not be physical in our wars. We are all at war.
Hear me out.
How many of us are going through family problems? How many of us are facing problems at school? At work? Bullies? Gangs?
How many of us are fighting a war with ourselves?
How many of us feel like we have the whole world on our shoulders and at any time, the moment we show weakness, the world would come crashing down?
If you don’t face that, you are either one lucky human being or not human at all. The problem with conflict and war is that it is all around us. We sometimes don’t see it or refuse to see it or we just become the ignorant creatures we can be and ignore it all together. Everyday, we all fight wars. I fight a war everyday. I fight a war with no one else but myself and I know that some annoying person who reads my blog will irritate me tonight or tomorrow. But I really don’t care.
My friend is in one of the most complicated wars I have ever seen. And I don’t even know how to help. She is going through so much and all I do is stand there fighting my own war. She fights a war to be with her family, to protect herself from her family. She fights this war to want to know what being a ‘family’ is all about. It is almost a year since she changed coustody and now I don’t know if I did the right thing insisting she do it. And out of everything else I have to handle, I beat myself up everyday because she is my best friend.
I beat myself everyday and that is one reason for my war. Now, I am fighting for more. I am fighting for respect. Directing my cast and getting respect from them isn’t my problem. Anyone want to know the real reason why I took up this? I wanted the challenge. I wanted the challenge to prove to the adults of my parish that our youths are capable. They say our youths are not active. We aren’t involved. We are respecting our faith. Look. Look at what our youths are putting up. Look. Listen. Listen to their voices. Listen. Listen to the way they praise. Listen to the way they sing. Listen to their words.
Some wars are shared. The respect I want from the adults is what all teenagers want. Don’t believe me? Look in your parish. In your place of worship. In your community. In your neighbourhood. In your city. In your state. LOOK in your COUNTRY. Look in OTHER countries. Look world wide. Adults believe that anyone who is not working is incapable and hence shouldn’t be given a chance to earn and gain respect. Step in our shoes for a second, will you? You don’t get it. We constantly are told indirectly that we need to prove ourselves. We feel that way. We need to be the best we can be, for our friends, for our families and for the benifit of the whole entire world. We have so much to prove.
People say do your best. It is ok if you fail. Do your best. Be your best for it is all we need. And you do your best and you do fail and you see it in their eyes. The disappointment. The sadness. Everything is gone. And those are the people who believe in you. For those who don’t well, they expect you fail. So you have to make those who believe in you proud and prove those who don’t wrong.
See the war we are fighting….I am fighting.
Freedom Writers.
That is what we are. We should all be given that title.
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