Where has time gone? I swear I'm still 13 years old in middle school—the awkward kid that was nervous about high school and all that came with it. There was no worrying about money or getting an internship. I saw my parents and sister every day. Things were normal.
The world didn't seem so negative and cruel. Mass shootings, bombings, and hostage situations didn't seem to be so regular on the news. My biggest problems were deciding where my friends and I wanted my mom to drive us on the weekends, or whether to pack or buy my lunch because there was a special meal that day. I didn't worry about the potential of a shooter on my college campus. I didn't worry about the high chances of a massacre happening any country around the world.
Those days I played my Nintendo DS when my parents would let me. I wasn't glued to my smartphone texting my friends, checking my Twitter, or updating my Facebook status. Instead, I had face-to-face conversations with people. Smartphones weren't a nuisance because we didn't have them. Things were different back then.
Now the world seems to be a different place. Everyone seems scared or worried. We've tuned so much into our smartphones and computers that we have tuned out the world around us. ISIS threats and college campus shootings weren't common stories in the news. Our focus wasn't on this little handheld device, but rather the people in front of us.
I miss those days. Everything seemed so much simpler. Not even just for myself as a young kid, but for my parents too. Everyone wasn't so tense all the time.
Let's try to bring back those times. Put away the phones and talk to each other instead of texting the person who is across the room. Let's put happier things in the news like people doing good deeds instead of constant bad things. Our world seems to be holding its breath, and it has been for years now. I think it's time that we let it breathe. Exhale.
I don't want to go back in time; we don't need to live in the past, but rather to learn from the past. Take the lessons that we can learn from back then and incorporate those in the now.
