Let's just say

If we all stopped to look at the world, how would we see it? Let's just say we did that, and we realized who we and the world really are.

Let's just say that life is a mix up of a thousand tiny events. Let's just say that those tiny events are both a tiny fleck of good and evil. Let's just say that those tiny events are the miniature screenshots of our lives that make us who we are. Let's just say, that we're nothing but the past replicated over and over and over and over again - growing over time, to make a larger, more mature set of ourselves in the future. 

Let's just say that we aren't defined by those tiny little screenshots - but by what we do with them. Are we really only thoughts of the past, do we really say things like our five year old selves would say things? Or are we different from that five year old, spontaneously stupid child? Are we really just that? 

The term, "grow up", is, in my belief, overused in so many instances. It's overused to the point that we say it to ten year old's who haven't even reached the age of growing up. We say it to young teenagers who haven't yet had a chance to grow up. We say it to adults who sometimes don't have a choice between growing up and growing old. We say it to our siblings when they pester us. We say it to our bosses who bother us. We say it to our parents who overbear us. We say it to our children who act out against us. . . And why? Because it's human nature? But so are the ways of those you are saying it to. Maybe your sibling likes to pick on you because they don't have any other way to show love. Maybe your boss's mother is dying of cancer and we don't know it because they hide it for the sake of staying sane. Maybe our parents almost died because of what you want to do and don't want that to happen to you because they love you. Maybe your children are trying to find their way in a world that forces them to sit and listen to a society who has egotistical issues. Maybe we're all humans, and maybe we all forgot to accept that about each other. 

Let's just say, for one second, each individual person in this world, began to accept each other for who they were and how they were. The boy across the street, doing drugs, smoking, and drinking. He had no real home, his parents abuse him, so do his teachers and peers at school. Everyone refuses to help him because he's a low life who hasn't been shown a way out of the dark hole he was placed in. 

The woman who's working the lumberyard and making competitions against her and the other men who think she doesn't deserve to be there. She was given a choice between staying with her abusive husband, her just and cruel parents, or going out on her own and making a living for herself. She chose the last, because she knew that would be the only way she could make a living. All he life she's been threatened, and for what, being a sensitive woman in a harsh world? 

The man who's harping on his wife for not doing the dishes. He came from a home where that was alright. He learned that no matter what happens, he needed to make a fight to survive, if he didn't, someone else would be fighting him and he would have to be lower than a man for someone to fight him. He's mentally scarred from a life that showed him no love, and for that, he doesn't realize how important love really is. 

The girl who stands on the street corner, with clothes hiked up high enough to see things no one should be allowed to seen. She's got three kids at home who are begging for food, and no one will take her in at a job for her past felonies that were her ways of just trying to get by. Now she has to take to the streets in order to feed her children and keep them in her custody. She's trying hard to get through college so that she can be seen as someone more than someone else's toy. 

Let's just say that for one second the world stopped looking at themselves, and began to see others for who they were on the inside and not the out. . . Would this world be a better place?

Sometimes the answer is no. There is true evil in this world, people who came from loving homes, people who were raised right, people who know how to live right, but refuse to by all costs. They want to watch the world crumble at their feet, all for the namesake of power and curiosity of what it would be like in a world so forgotten by love and forgiveness. 

So, if for one second, the world stopped for each other, would we live in peace? 

Many times, the answer can be yes. Because those who would see the world for how it should be seen would far outweigh those who want to watch the world die. Those of us who stopped would rise and we would see the truth in all it's beautiful glory. A second, in many risen hopes, would become a thousand seconds, and those would become a million minutes, and those a trillion hours. 

Let's just say for one second, we stopped seeing ourselves for who we think or thought we were, and start seeing others for who they are. War is inevitable, so is hatred and sadness and strife. But among the pain that leads us on, there is hope, and resurrection, and peace, and a life for all of us that we can only thrive for. 

Let's just say, for one second, we stop and look, and wonder, and know, and become.

Reviews

[Robert Parlange]

What you’re writing about is empathy; a rare commodity these days. Everyone has a story. We tend to get so locked into our own that we don’t notice everyone else around us. No one gets through life undamaged. We need to understand that it’s a difficult life for some people who haven’t had our advantages. Pity some of our politicians can’t see this.

Good essay. It made me think. My head hurts now.

[Lauren]

I'm glad I got your thought process going! Empathy, truly, is something so rarely seen in this world. I am, myself an empathetic person, and some days it's so hard to see out of the eyes of those who don't want or know it. Thank you for your in depth review!

[Lorry]

Yep, you nailed this. So many thoughts and observations of life, but also of putting ourselves under the microscope and questioning the what's, where's, why's, how's and when's. The grow up part resonates with me, it is one of the most used and ill conceived ideas ever. Always being told to grow up leaves you with the thought that it is most often used as a negative, but there are times when we need to be immature and throw caution to the wind too. We all do, just as we all get some of it right and other parts wrong. We are all growing up, some get nearer to the end that bit quicker though.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find my minion slippers and slide down a bannister :)
Wonderful, thought provoking words.

[Lauren]

I'm so glad I was able to really get my thoughts across! You hit it right across the head, that the term 'grow up' is so negative, and there are times we really shouldn't grow up. We should live a little like children at times so that we don't forget what life really is about. I love your observation that we are all growing up, some just reach their destination sooner than others. It's so true, and do believe that those who have reached or are almost to their point, have learned to be child like sometimes, they know how important it is to sometimes just let go and be who they want to be.
Rock those minion slippers and go crazy on the banister!
Thank you again, your kind and lovely words have made my week!

[Lorry]

You're welcome. :)