Wednesday, May 9, 2012

the tide always turns.

We live in a beautiful, free and proud country and from sea to shining sea and there are a wondrous number of examples of opportunity, kindness, generosity and love. But you can’t have the good without having the bad. Yes, even in this great country, we still have poverty, hatred, violence and inequality… but we also possess the power to change these injustices… it’s called voting.

Now I could step onto my soapbox about how it’s a privilege to be able to have a free and open democracy and have the right to vote… but that is not going to change anyone’s mind. You either have the passion or you don’t. You can’t make someone be passionate about something they are not. You can try to educate them, but that’s not going to make them passionate. It’s just going to annoy them. That’s like trying to make someone love you, when they are clearly just trying to break up with you in the nicest way possible. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

This country is divided and gets more divided everyday, especially since it’s election season. We are going down a sad and dark path, but how do we stop it? Can we even stop it? In our country’s young life, we have faced and overcome many challenges and adversities. Just open up a US history book, but even that has been tainted nowadays. We’ve seen the best in people and we’ve seen the worst in people… and we will continue to, that my friends… will never change. But like most everything else in this world, we will evolve and this too shall pass.

It’s most certainly not going to happen overnight, maybe not even in this decade or in your lifetime, and it’s probably not going to be pretty (changing the world usually isn’t) but educate yourself – don’t let others make your opinions for you. When it’s over, we will leave this country and world a better, stronger, braver place… for the next fight.

“Anger is like holding on to a hot coal with the intent to throw it. You’re the only one that gets burned.”

...oh, and for the record I do not believe marriage should define you as a person or your rights, just as the government should not define love.