I am going to change the world. This I write with stalwart unmitigated certainty. This I write with arduous desperation. This I write with love.
I am an empath. Whether the culprit be chance or fate, I cannot say, but my biography consists of innumerable experiences with the same result: increased ability to truly relate to all people. Spending my childhood in an isolated tourist town of 1000 residents, then living in one of the biggest and most rapidly developing cities in America from age 13 on allowed me to see the highlights and hardships of both lifestyles. My parents’ ever-changing relationship has given me the opportunity to live in a picture-perfect two-parent home, two homes directly across the street from each other with one parent living in each, a single-parent home with a father living six hours away, and everything in between. I experienced the conveniences of a swollen family bank account and then was abruptly humbled when it all disappeared. Watching my mother struggle with fibromyalgia among umpteen other “invisible diseases” has showed me what it feels like to be helpless. Doctors cannot fix everything. These along with daily conflicts and realizations have expanded my understanding of human nature, motivations, and reactions.
I am a philanthropist. In my heart, there is no greater accomplishment than busting through all the self-doubt, worry, and fear that cements itself onto the faces of so many today. I know, with indubitable conviction, that there is no such thing as a bad person. Life has taught me that people never just do bad things. Sherlock Holmes himself could examine every prison, every confessional, every nook and cranny of hell and would still come up dry in a search of a hurtful act with no reason behind it. No one deserves pain, and although suffering plants the essential roots for personal growth, an unimaginable portion of hardship felt by humans today is unnecessary. Here lies my role.
Yesterday, too many people starved to death in poverty. Today, too many children woke up in the hospital with an incurable illness. Tomorrow, too much intolerance will cause too many suicides. As humans, we create the conditions that allow for such adversity, and as humans, we solely hold the power and responsibility to abolish them. I am a warrior in this endeavor. Each word I speak is a battle cry.
I am an ally. Last week, one of my best male friends appeared on my doorstep in a tempest of helpless sobs. Unable to pull an explanation from his lips, I guided him into my room and held him. I held him tight and close in silence for over an hour, praying that his mind and trembling body would soon find peace. After the eye of the storm passed, I learned the tension in his household over his homosexuality had finally reached a boiling point, and he no longer felt safe at home. His intolerant mother has attempted to beat the abnormality out of him with relentless verbal abuse and threats since the embarkation of his homosexuality. With college approaching, she raised the pressure to an unbearable level, driving her own son out of the house. Honored that he took refuge in me, I gladly pushed an extra twin mattress onto the floor of my miniscule bedroom where he has slept since. Though we clearly lack the space and money to comfortably support a third resident in our one bathroom house, my mother and I have welcomed him into our family with open arms and continually stand behind him in all his legal and personal battles to gain independence from his terrorizing mother. No one, especially at eighteen years old, should feel unsafe, or even unaccepted, at home. No matter the circumstances, I always have and always will do everything in my power to abet those around me and all over the world.
I can. At the age of thirteen my brain was thrust into the midst of a fatal and rapidly progressing disease that almost took my life. Three years, three hospitalizations, one heart surgery, two treatments and thousands of intensive therapy sessions later, I obtained full physical and psychological remission from anorexia nervosa. I now see those three years as the biggest blessing I’ve received. At eighteen years old, I have already beheld the rewiring of brain pathways first-hand. Survival forced me to obtain more control over my brain, and therefore myself, than many adults. Witnessing such a psychological phenomenon lit an endless spark of inspiration inside me. If a teenage girl can learn how to reinvent her brain function, what else can the human mind do? I began to research even bigger mental and spiritual breakthroughs and came to the astonishing realization that Disney classics aren’t full of lies. The human really can do anything he sets his mind to. I can change the world, so I plan on it.
Disney has managed to weave one other remarkably accurate theme within it’s magic: love conquers all. Humans are subject to various physical, emotional, and societal hindrances everyday, but not one of these obstacles limit our capacity to love. And through love, for oneself as well as for others, we reach unleash infinite potential. I have seized this potential with white knuckles and am prepared to hold on come hell or high water. I am going to change the world.
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