Most teenagers these days live extremely vapid lives. I honestly wish we could focus more on serious things, because it seems like all teenagers these days want to do is mess around. No one seems interested in intellectual pursuits, creating things, solving problems. But hey, I can’t really just make people change these things, so what I would really like to do is just pose some questions as well as just let you all know how I feel.
The reason America has succeeded in the past is because it has always had innovative and rational thinkers. If our generation (This means at YHS and every other school around the States) does completely fail to keep innovating and thinking big, then our country would head in a terrible direction. Fortunately, big thinkers still exist, they are just going down in numbers – we need to change this. I urge you all to think for yourselves about this, and ask yourself; do you want to screw around and be unproductive? Or do you want to do something that really matters?
Of course not everyone has a scientific mind and can contribute to the scientific community and its innovations. That’s fine. There are outlets for the more artistically tuned minds, which can be effective and powerful in our world. To illustrate this point, there is writing; literature, journalism, blogging, and so on. Even art itself; painting, drawing, etc. These are all powerful tools to communicate your thoughts and feelings to the world, and they are beneficial to everyone including the person who’s creating.
I believe that not only America should progress, but our whole world should. The more people we have innovating and creating things that are beneficial, the more humanity progresses – I strongly encourage you all to consider that.
I believe another key component to our progression is leaving certain things behind. There are things still being done today that should have been left behind long ago.
For now, I’m going to touch on what I feel is most important for our age-group to worry about getting rid of – Bullying. I want to dedicate the rest of the blog to this issue, because I feel that’s the proper amount of attention it deserves, if not more.
I want you all to think back to your elementary school years. There has always been the kid on the playground that would pick on you. The one who was bigger than you. Maybe there was the kid on the playground who would make you feel left out. Maybe it has never happened to you, maybe it’s only happened to you once, or maybe it has always happened to you. Maybe you have been beaten up or jumped before, by an individual or a group of people who just won’t leave you alone. Either way, the truth is that it’s still a problem, from kindergarten to high school. It’s happening everywhere in the world. It’s happening somewhere as you read this. A lot of people tend to say, “Oh, that’s just high school.” As if it’s some common thing that we all have to go through. But hear me out; absolutely no one should have to go through it. The very fact that it has been accepted as something common is even more of a reason for us to get rid of it. This is an issue we should try to overcome rather than validate.
As some of you may know, in 1999, there was a school shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. It is now properly referred to as the “Columbine High School massacre.” – Because it was an absolute massacre. Two students carried out the attack, and killed thirteen others. At the end of the massacre, they both committed suicide. Of course, everyone these days forgets to ask, “Why?” people tend to jump straight to the conclusion that they were simply maniacs who randomly felt like killing people. However, it is not this way. These students were both being bullied throughout all of high school, they were considered to be the “losers of the losers”. Hardly anyone accepted them, and the main culprit of the bullying was the population of jocks at the school. The two students were even doing a video for one of their classes once, and you see a huge group of the jocks coming their way. As the jocks passed by, you see them relentlessly slamming their elbows into the one carrying the camera. The two students didn’t even respond in any way, because they had gotten used to it. That’s the problem, people get used to it – they get used to sucking it up. Eventually, all the anger trapped inside the two boys resulted in them planning to shoot up the whole school. And it’s really hard to be surprised when you consider how badly they were being treated. Apparently it was easier to shoot the kids at Columbine than it was to fit in with them. Think about all it would have taken to prevent the assault, maybe if someone just listened to those two about what they had to say, and offered to look out for them, it wouldn’t have resulted in the total loss of fifteen lives.
With my example of Columbine, you can easily see the extremes that bullying can drive victims to. I don’t want there to be any more school shootings. The only way that we can stop it completely is to stick up for the ones being bullied. Even if you aren’t involved – GET INVOLVED. The people who pull out their camera, or stand by while someone is being beaten up or harassed, are just as bad as the bully. You shouldn’t care if you’re going to get beat up too for trying to back the kid up, or if people are going to start bullying you too. You should do it for the general good, do it for what is truly right. Imagine if you were the person laid out on the ground getting the shit kicked out of them. Imagine how much better you would feel, if one person jumped in to try and help you, just one person. Even if those who jumped in got beat up, they would have gotten beat up with you. They would have felt pain with you. Imagine how much better you would feel. Imagine what it would be like to be in that position, then find out that someone actually cares about you. Someone actually wants to stand up. The two Columbine shooters, they felt no one cared for them, no one stepped in to help them out. Imagine if you were there when those Columbine kids got elbowed by all the jocks, you could say something to them, you could stop them, you could make a stand. Next time you see someone getting beat up, shoved, harassed, or anything like that. Think about it as your chance to prevent that Columbine attack from happening, to prevent someone’s life from becoming even more damaged, to show that person that someone actually cares. If you see somebody being bullied, imagine it was you. Don’t be afraid to take that stand.
We can better our world. The only way we can do it is by making a real effort. Let’s make a change.
-Wyatt Leaf
