Just Have Hope

If you were to walk the halls of any high school you would be surprised. The amount of foul things said is mind-boggling. And very depressing. Most teenagers speak the same five words when it comes to talking amongst their peers and it wouldn't shock me if they spoke that way in other places as well.  The world is losing its language. People abbreviate and abbreviate and abbreviate. Kids no longer know how to write. Here are some examples of texting shortcuts. Let's see how many you know. LOL- Laugh out Loud IKR- I Know Right TBH- To Be Honest TTYL- Talk to you later IDK-I Don't Know TY-Thank You SMH-Shake My Head NVM-Never Mind K-Okay Get my point? (And for the record I only use about three of those on the list. I type out most of my words when texting.) Anyway, the world is losing its language. People are choosing to shorten things, less face-to-face action is occurring, and the effect: words are losing their meaning and value. People have less vocabulary than they used t...

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." ~Bernard M. Baruch   I am so grateful to be able to have freedom of speech in the country. To be able to express what I feel without consequence. However, those who don't appreciate who I am and what I say do not matter.  Why should we associate with those who shoot us down and don't respect us for who we are? We don't need people who tell us who to be or what to say. Those who actually care about us want to hear what we have to say and are going to be there for us no matter what. These are the kinds of people we truly need in our lives. If we feel like we have to pretend to be someone we are not then why hang around people like that? If they won't accept who we truly are then it isn't worth it. We shouldn't pretend to be someone we're not. There are teenagers who try to be cool or do what everyone else is doing just so they can be ...

 "It is not your job to fix other people. You can't fix them. You can only change the way you live and the way you respond to life..." ~Lisa Prosen "When you are no longer able to change a situation, you are challenged to change yourself. And that changes everything." ~Marcandangel Notice how both of these quotes say that you can't change other people or situations but you can change yourself. Since we have no control over others the only thing we really can change is ourselves.  I think this can be hard to remember especially when other people's lives are falling apart. We can be examples to others, we can help others and we can uplift others but we can't change them. They have to choose to change.  All of us have free agency in order to choose. Unfortunately, that means those we love can make bad decisions that hurt them. It is very hard to watch loved ones make bad choices and live with the consequences afterward. Sometimes I wish a good speech wa...