This I Believe

Sitting there procrastinating my homework as usual I take a stroll through the websites I have gathered for perusing. I stumble on hunger, on war, on inequality. I look through the pictures and realize how small and insignificant I am. I watch the videos and find myself weeping from the overwhelming tragedy of helplessness. I listen and find myself diving into the unknown to find the answers that have never been found.

I look into their eyes and the light or lack thereof speaks of their never ending expanse. Each holds a story of a life being lived: happy moments, sad moments, tragedy and influence. Within their eyes is an entire universe of possibility, and this I believe, they are of infinite worth.

I'll catch myself thinking, wondering, dreading what may be going on at that exact moment somewhere else in the world. I'll be sitting at the college library reading another passage for a seemingly pointless assignment when suddenly I find myself unable to breath at the thought that somewhere in the world a child may be shot and killed in a civil war, a woman is probably being beat for refusing to sleep with a man, or a mother just lost a child because she could not find the means to feed them.

Why is it that I am so fortunate to be a white, middle-class, therapist-seeing, debt-collecting, college female when other beautiful and intelligent human beings are being discarded like empty milk cartons in a dorm dumpster? Who decided to make them unworthy of voicing their ideals that what is happening to them is unfair? Who decided that they are unworthy of being able to eat or sleep in a comfortable, safe place or gain an education? Who made them seem so worthless?

When I am feeling inadequate at work, in school, or my relationships, it's just plain irony - I consider those who feel inadequate at life because the entire world seems to tell them they are just by ignoring them, by killing them, selling them, starving them, oppressing them, stifling them, or controlling their every move.

They are of worth. Of more worth than perhaps my easy life. They are oceans and universes, they are stars and they are worlds without limit. Someday I'll convince them of that, someday I can tell them exactly what I believe.

I sit back in my chair and finish my homework.




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