Warning: I’m venting about this damn election! Here we go…
I can’t help but think after viewing my Facebook feed this morning that I am “friends” with quite a few passionate people. Passionate about this upcoming election, that is. I can appreciate passion, as an avid writer, I am passionate about the things I love and know how to express said things with words and phrases that put you right in the line of my thinking. My issue though, lies in the fact that if you can be this passionate about an election and overflow my newsfeed with your opinions, thoughts and beliefs, I encourage you to use that passion more than 30 days every four years in the time immediately before a presidential election. The thing is, I don’t (and won’t) discuss politics. I have never told a soul who I’ve voted for in any election, as that is my own personal beliefs and choices. I mean, to keep it real, I am a vertically challenged, overweight girl with chicken legs and random tattoos…there’s no need to give people extra ammo to fire at me. However my only concern in this whole ordeal (besides FB bursting into flames from the mass quantities of political posts) is that if we all can be this passionate about a political debate once every four years, couldn’t we use the other three years and eleven months to be passionate about other very serious issues going on in this death circle we call Earth?
Last Friday, I sat at my desk at lunch and watched a video on my cell of a little girl around sixteen years of age expressing her thoughts and inner demons on flashcards that told her story of being bullied…to death. Yes, to DEATH! I’m going to be blatantly honest here and say that when I was between the ages of twelve to fourteen, I was picked on (A LOT) and I guess you could even use the word ‘bullied’ and it wasn’t fun or funny. It hurt my feelings a lot and as a result, I had a very tough skin. So when people hurt me, I hurt them. It was easier for me to fight and build a reputation not to be messed with than to let the “punking” get to me. I got in a lot of fights and it’s not something I am in any way proud of. In later years, I met someone who told me, “I knew who you were, but I didn’t KNOW you and I was scared of you”…that is NOTHING to be proud of. Yeah, I was mean as a rattlesnake and people left me alone for the most part, but it shouldn’t have been that way. Sadly, for this little girl I watched a video of last week, her skin wasn’t as tough and she took her own life because she was constantly picked on by her peers.
That is just one example, but seriously, you want to be passionate about something when this election is over, I’m sure we can compile a list to get you started and it would be things that you can actually rally for that would help someone besides yourself. Fight and rally and spread the word about teen pregnancy, bullying, sexual molestation, harassment, child abuse, domestic violence, drug abuse, alcoholism…do you get my point or should I continue this endless list?
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