How do we define everything?

The dictionary definition of the word everything is simple: It's all things. It is, quite literally, every single thing. Whether it's a lot or a little, it's all of it. There is no tangible, numerical value to everything. Everything isn't objective. You can't measure it until it's in front of you. The meaning of everything is constantly changing because everything depends entirely on perspective.

What everything is to me will not be what is everything to you. My everything is an accumulation of my experiences, my values, my beliefs, my likes, my dislikes, and my work. My everything is tailored to me and my life. My everything is just that – mine.

Everyone has an everything and everyone's everything is different, but we will never know what our everything's mean to each other and we don't get to say that someone's everything is more or less than another person's.

Me and Colin Kaepernick come from radically different backgrounds, but I would say we have pretty similar everything's. Like Kaepernick, my career is my everything. Yes, it's joined by my friends and my family and my dog and my faith, but my career takes up one of the largest parts of my life and I haven't even achieved half of what I want to.

I haven't come anywhere near to how far I hope to go, and yet I know that if I lost any of it, I would be devastated. I would be crushed. I would lose a part of myself.

In the Nike ad, Kaepernick is shown with the caption: "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything."

I wouldn't call myself proficient in football – I barely even know my way around – but I will say that it's safe to assume that playing for the NFL was pretty close to Kaepernick's everything. Yes, you could argue that he'll be fine, that he has money, that he's healthy. You could argue that he "didn't even play that much" and that he "wasn't even a great player."

You could even argue that Kaepernick didn't sacrifice anything, much less everything. You could argue that what he did was make a choice, maybe the wrong choice according to you. You could argue that he's a football player, not an activist. You could argue that he got what he deserved for being un-American.

Yes, Colin Kaepernick made a choice. He chose to make a point. He chose to put his reputation on the line. He chose to use his platform, his voice, to speak out for those who can't. He chose to give up any chance of playing or becoming a better player.

So yes, Kaepernick made a choice. But a choice can also be a sacrifice.

All the great activists and all the people who changed the world made sacrifices. This isn't to say that they didn't choose to, because I'm sure that if you asked them they would opt to do it again. Rosa Parks chose to stay seated. Martin Luther King chose to march. The Freedom Riders chose to go.

And I like to believe that had they known what would happen next – how many lives would be lost, how much pain it would cause – they would still choose to do it. Regardless of the things, their choice asked them to give up – to sacrifice for the greater good.

We can sit and argue about the semantics. Colin Kaepernick still has his life, so did he really sacrifice everything? Well, the short answer is no. The long answer, however, is that he sacrificed everything he could.

Colin Kaepernick has gained a lot. He has an ad that went viral, he has the support of hundreds of thousands, he has his voice and his platform, but he doesn't have the one thing he worked his whole life to achieve. He can't play the one sport he's wanted to play his entire life. He gained so much, but he had to lose it all first.

Colin Kaepernick is a football player and an activist. Activists aren't born, they're made. And he was made the minute his First Amendment right was violated.

Colin Kaepernick isn't protesting the flag or veterans. Colin Kaepernick is protesting what the flag represents: freedom and liberty and justice. He isn't disrespecting soldier's service or courage – which should be obvious by the way several veterans, including the one who gave him the idea, have continuously backed him up – he's trying to say that we're not all free.

Colin Kaepernick was peacefully protesting America because America has let down unarmed black men, and women and children, and how does it repay him?

By attempting to silence him, too.