Imagine this:

You're walking down the street looking down at your phone at what song is playing next through your headphones. Something catches the corner of your eye and turn to see a group of kids physically picking on another kid who's not fighting back. What do you do? Do you keep walking and pretend you didn't see anything, or do you intervene? It's a tough choice to make, and not one that anyone hopes to be making any time soon.

When I watch the news, I always see someone playing the victim and not taking responsibility for themselves. Our world is at war with itself, and there's always someone to blame for our problems. I think that we play the victim because we hope in the end that the consequences for what we've done won't be as severe. Why is it so hard to confess to our wrongdoings, and just take the hit for it? We've become ashamed of what we've done, and hide it from the rest of the world.

I currently live with a girl whose comeback to everything is, "fight me". To challenge someone to fight you is one thing, but to actually do it is another. It becomes tiring to hear the same words over and over, including such a challenge as "fight me". I've found that another solution to avoiding our problems other than hiding them is to battle them out and hope for the best in the end. Sometimes the result doesn't go the way we'd hoped, but then we just have to accept what happened and move on. I see so many people get caught up in what the end result is and try to change it so it benefits them instead of just accepting it, picking up the pieces and moving forward. In moving forward, we can learn from that experience instead of dwelling in it and getting stuck.

I feel like I've been fighting for my whole life - fighting for what's right, fighting to prove myself and fighting for my place in life. It grows tiresome after a long time, so much so that I just want to lie down and take a nap. In a physical fight, you grow tired and may eventually end up on the ground. I think that sometimes we put ourselves on the ground and give up the fight. In doing so, we allow others to come along and kick us while we're down instead of helping us up again. Yet we also allow others to do the latter as well. It's our choice whether we let them keep kicking us, or we take their hand and get up.

I've found in my personal experience that you can't win a fight on your own as hard as you might try. Even if you do, the victory is only temporary. If you have close friends that are willing to stand by you and help you get through it all, then the victory lasts so much longer. Life can be tough to withstand alone, but you can weather the storm with people who are willing to support you and be there for you. You need people who are willing to step up and be by your side, not to tear you down and drag you through the mud.

While we may want to in every instance of conflict, we can't walk into each one with our dukes up - sometimes a fight isn't necessary. I've had friends who've kept me out of potential fights because they saw what I couldn't see. Keep an open mind, and don't be so willing to take the first punch. You may never know peace if all you're looking for is a fight.

"Suddenly, the lights go out.
Let forever drag me down.
I will fight for one last breath.
I will fight until the end.
And I will find the enemy within,
'Cause I can feel it crawl beneath my skin"
-Breaking Benjamin, "Dear Agony"