Humanity is Important

There is a great many things I don’t know. As in, there are significantly more things that I don’t know in comparison to what I know. But what I do know is that there is enough hate in this world already and I am not going to contribute to it. I know that friends are the family that you chose and if you have good friends and a good family both you are blessed. If you have both of those, cherish them always and appreciate them. I know that a person picks their priorities and will always have time in their lives for those priorities. And I know that how I am viewed as a person is a reflection on how I treat people regardless of creed, color, love, language or any other means of category.

And I know I have been on a kick of writing about how much I love and appreciate my friends and family, imploring people to open their eyes and hearts, and to not judge. I don’t mean to come off repetitive and preaching, I just know that the community I live in now seems to have a great lack of humanity and it eats at me. I am not perfect, I fail, I lie, and I cheat. But I try. I look at myself in the mirror first. And I put effort into considering where people are coming from before I open my mouth. If I can’t say anything nice, I try and keep my mouth shut. I just don’t understand how people can be so callous. I am the emotionally dead one (seriously, I don’t cry in sad movies) and I want people to care?

I lived in Ukraine, where I spoke minimal Ukrainian, and Russian was beyond me. I didn’t know the culture. So my daily life consisted of saying the wrong things: “Please pee your name on your papers before turning them in” instead of write and doing the wrong things: I dipped my bread in my soup and ate the skin off the pickled tomatoes. I sat on cold cement and froze my ovaries. But in Ukraine, when I was puking on the side of the road from drinking well water, random strangers came up to me and reminded me that everything “will be alright.” If I was sick on the side of the road here, best case scenario would be people crossing over to walk on the opposite side of the road and not taking photo/video to post on the internet. I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk in Thailand appreciating the general city life- four different Thai locals came up to me and offered to get me directions if I was lost. Here? Don’t make eye-contact and keep walking. Congratulations America. You win. So build your fences and make sure you separate yourself from humanity because you are clearly too good for it.

And yes. You will always have time for whom and what you think is important. So, what is important to you? Mine is humanity.