My normal morning routine of reading the Washington Post and New York Times has been flooded with horrendous events lately. I want to say that I am not scared for the future of our nation, but if I said that, I would be lying.
All I want to do at this very moment is give people who are affected by our worldwide violence a big hug. Usually, hugs make everything better, but in this case, I don't know what to do. For the first time in a long while, I feel helpless and lost about the uncertain future of our world.
I am normally the one who sees the world from a glass half full perspective. Right now, it is so hard to live that way when we are bombing innocent people and destroying lives. If that glass was filled with anything at this moment, it would be the tears of mankind. I am crying for the lives lost and affected by violence brought on by hate.
We have a saying at Southern Miss from the amazing Dr. Joe Paul, and it is to leave a place better than you found it. I want to do that for the world. I think that my generation is wondering how when so many terrible events have happened. It is impossible to know where to begin when we do not know how it will end up. However, as history shows, we have the ability to persist. Our world leaders have heavily discouraged the idea of a resistance, but in order to initiate the change we want. we must. In the words of the fabulous Hillary Rodham Clinton, we must "resist, insist, persist, and enlist. It is through the help of our worldwide resistance that things will start to point in the right direction.
I am proud to be an American, but I cannot be a proud American when our president is breaking up families and harming innocent people. If he is doing it to innocent people, what will happen when he steps on enemy lines? Another war is almost certain to happen at this rate, and I am scared of what is coming to us. With failed missile strikes already happening and directed at the United States, it is scary. What I have had to come to the realization of is that it is okay to be scared. Just as it was fine to get upset over the election results, it is okay to be scared. It's what we do with the tears that will define our millennial legacy. While we could easily turn our tears into bullets, let's turn them into hugs.
I know how easy it is to want to stick your middle fingers in the air and take a dose of Screwitol, but we cannot afford to do that. We have to become the architects for future generations and build the structure of our future on the foundation of our ancestors. We may build walls, but there will always be a window to let light in.