Peace Starts With Us
I was taking a walk with my best friend this evening at the park. It's just this green place where we usually find kids chasing each other around or people enjoying picnics and other things which make us smile.
I love going there because that's the only place where I find kids laughing and people SO happy that it makes me wonder if they even have actual problems in their lives.
So, yeah, back to todays walk, we found these little kids on the sidewalk, one little girl on the bike, and all the other kids screaming at her for not giving in for some mischief they all planned to do.
We kept walking. I then heard them scream, "We don't need you! Go away! Go away or else, we call the cops!"
So I walked back, waved at her, and said, "Hey, wanna walk with us?"
"No."
"They're not your real friends, maybe you should play with someone else."
"Okay."
She just went away with a frown. Maybe she didn't want to hangout with us because of the "Don't talk to strangers" thing, but anyway.
See? If little, innocent kids try to stab each other with hurtful words for silly reasons, then think about what we are doing! Let it be the Gaza issue, or the India-Pak war or people blaming Islam for terrorism, let it be anything, simple or complex, we are hurting each other, with words or swords, but that's all we all are doing.
We just pretend to care for people just so that we don't feel lonely. We make friends and have relationships, just so that we are not alone, who cares about other people right? All we need to worry about is, if you have people to be with, or not.
I once went for this Personality Development workshop. We did this activity where we all had balloons and we were asked to burst everybody else's balloon without getting yours burst.
While playing, all I found was that everybody just wanted to burst others' balloons without even caring about theirs'. It was just weird watching them, because I then realized that, that's how the real world is. That all people want to do, is defeat each other, like, practically kill them.
Some might say that my perceptions are just wrong; that people are not that way, that people care, that, there is love and compassion in this world and that everything about this world is beautiful.
Maybe it's just me, but I strongly believe that this world will stop rotting one day, that there will be peace, if we all just stop being selfish and think for a second about what's happening around.
There will be harmony if we, actually, for once, start caring for each other and not fight to be the best. Yes, we should compete, but with ourselves, so that we can be the best we can ever be. Competing with others leads to bigger issues.
So yeah, if we want peace, we should have peace from within ourselves, care for each other, stop fighting and just live life without hurting a single soul.
And that's when the world would turn into a better place to live. And that's when we FINALLY would be able to live happily ever after. (:
Written in 2010 by Farzana P., Age 16 --- Dubai