Tolerance + "Arranged" Movie

Acceptance, understanding, and appreciation for life tend to be lost on some people. Many on this earth allow differences to separate them from others without any valid reason other than them thinking that differences are too difficult and too insignificant to overcome. In a time where biased opinions influence beliefs, this allowance is dangerous to relationships. Even though we may not realize it, each one of us has a relationship with those who we both encounter and those we never meet. Our actions affect this earth and this life which in turn affects those here and those yet to come. Even though we may not know those people, we have a relationship of sorts with them.

As people, we expect understanding and tolerance shown to us. Even though we hold that expectation, we don’t always return the gesture. What stops us from acting the way toward others as we expect them to act toward us? There are many answers to this question. Some answers include hatred, fear, misunderstanding, resentment, and ignorance. Once we can figure out what is causing these issues, we can then deal with them. Once we understand our habits and our ways, we can find ways to better ourselves. If we can treat people in a better manner, maybe they will do the same for others. Our actions towards them influence how they react to those they encounter in the future. The way that they treat others will be passed on to their children and so on. It’s a little daunting that our actions can influence such a great number of people. How then do we change this? It’s simple, we have to change the way we react in certain situations. We have to take care of how we hold ourselves and present ourselves along with developing the way we think. In order to do this, we must find tolerance within ourselves for diversity of all kinds. Whether it is religion, gender, ability, ethnicity, or sexuality, we have to be able to deal with it in a manner which isn’t oppressive to others.



I watched a movie today called “Arranged”. It is a story of two young women, one is Muslim and the other is Orthodox Jewish, who are new teachers in a Bronx public school. Despite their obvious differences, they develop a special bond. Even though many people are against their friendship, they don’t allow it to break them apart. Over the course of the year, these two women find they have much more in common than they had thought. As I watched this movie, it made me reflect on how much we take our actions for granted and how much hatred has ruined the chance of many relationships. Prejudice and biasness has become part of everyday life and it’s ridiculous. People judge others by first sight instead of by interaction. That judgment is based on appearance alone. Do they appear to be something different than you? If the answer is yes, then 9 times out of 10, that is it. There is no second thought on the issue. They are deemed something lower than the person judging them. We do not hold the power of judgment. It is not in our ability to rightfully judge someone. We tend to discard someone before we even know them because of how they look or act or what someone says about them. This movie reminded me that this isn’t good. We don’t have the right to do this to someone. This does nothing except push people away from each other and create boundaries that separate groups of people. It creates hatred and discrimination. It makes life very unfair and it can easily be avoided.

So the next time that we encounter someone new, let’s not be so quick to jump to conclusions about them. Let’s try to get past all our differences and get to know them. Maybe we could learn something from them that might change us. Don’t allow appearances and superficial attributes be the reason you push someone away because it only takes one tiny crack to break something precious.

Uncertainty

No matter what part of our life we are in, whether it is adolescence or adulthood, there will be times in which we face uncertainty. Granted there are people who face more uncertainty than others, there will come times when we all face it. We can’t escape it and there isn’t a way to determine when that uncertainty will hit us. We could be driving or even just resting when it happens. Since we can’t escape it, the question then becomes “How do I deal with it?”. This is a hard question to answer in just one breath because there are many different ways which works for many different types of people. With this world growing, expanding, and developing, there are more types of people than before. There are religious and non-religious, strong and weak, determined and unmotivated. This diversity means that one thing may work for a person but fails on another person, which demands different techniques for each individual.

The thing which I always find very effective for myself in times of uncertainty is faith. Nothing comforts me more than it and nothing works as well to not only calm me but help me understand the situation. Now, I know this isn’t useful for all people because everyone’s level of faith varies. I have also dealt with stress techniques which were somewhat helpful for me and successful for others. This technique covers a wide range of ways which include breathing, focusing, and even pressure techniques such as gripping and releasing a foam ball. The best way of dealing with uncertainty that I have ever come across is comfort. Whether it be with family, friends, or even strangers, the comfort of knowing someone is with you so you aren’t going through it alone. Talking to someone about what you are feeling and what you are afraid of really helps to relieve the emotions that occur from uncertainty.

So, no matter where you are or when it is, uncertainty will hit you eventually. The important part is to be prepared in knowing how you can deal with it. If you don’t deal with it, it will only consume you and bring your heart down to the ground. It will worry you till there is nothing left but fear. The important thing is to remember that you can face it and deal with it. Don’t let it affect you in a negative way.

What Does Life Mean To You?

What does life mean to you? Is it all about nice cars, lots of money, maybe being number one? Or perhaps it's more about helping those in need and protecting what you believe in? Whichever you think is most important in life, be sure that our actions don't come without a price. What is up to you is that you must decide if that price is worth it. Me personally, I believe that the purpose of life is to live it, helping as many lives as you can, while still protecting your faith. To me, the two most important things in life are faith and love. The love which I refer to is the love that you have for your fellow humans. The love that puts them in a place of importance in your heart. Even if you don't know them, their lives are still important to you.

We all go through so many trials thoughout our lives that we either forget what's really important or we find what's important. When we are given a test in this life, we find out what type of person we really are. We find out what means most to us. To everyone, the things that matter differ, but the thing that stays the same is that we all value something important. Every person on this earth places something above themselves. Sometimes people value materialistic things over other things, but that doesn't mean that they are wrong. It just means they see value at a different level than others do.

Many people have had experiences which leave them devastated and questioning life. I think that every person, in order to find out what life truly means to them, they have to go through something life changing. You can't find importance without the struggle behind it. It's the struggles we go through which creates our understanding of the value of life. Without that struggle, we can never really know what life means. We can't see how important something is without knowing what it's like to not have it.

So what does life mean to you? Have you been blessed with the true understanding of it? If not yet, then one day you will find it. One day, each person on this earth will go through something which helps them find the meaning of life. To some it's cars and money, but to others it's helping and caring. Me, I choose the latter because that is the only way to help others find the meaning they are searching for. Hopefully, we all will find our own meanings in time.

Never Give Up

By now, I'm sure you have all heard of the Binghamton shooting which occurred on Friday, April 3rd. For those who don't know about it, here is a little information on it. Friday morning, a man went on a rampage, killing 13 people and injuring even more. The shooting occurred at the American Civics Association which is an organization that helps immigrants with immigration and citizenship. Before entering this building, he barricaded the back door with his car and entered the front of the building, shooting two secretaries upon entrance. The shooting only lasted three minutes, but it took hours to clear the building and while it was being cleared, the high school was on lock down and many frantic people were unaware of what was really happening. Hours after the first shots were fired, they found the gunman dead.

This isn't a news report, so don't worry about that. There are many things about this incident that I find interesting (not the murders, the after-occurrences). There is one thing that can't be argued, this was a premeditated act. Why this massacre occurred, we will probably never have that answer. There are two conflicting reports which really interest me. The first report stated that the gunman's sister couldn't believe this happened. She said that her brother was a good man and that she never could imagine him doing this. The second report, after saying his name was something different than the first, stated that his family wasn't surprised of his actions. They supposedly reported that he had a drug and gun addiction. Of course we can't believe what the news says, but I find it interesting that there are two completely contradictory stories published by two respected news sources.

What could make a person do this? I believe that any answer you could have to that question would be nothing but an excuse. Everybody has a hard life in one way or another. Every single one of us will face times in which we think there is no way to come away from it; no way out. The thing some of us forget is that there is ALWAYS a way out, no matter how hard it is. There is always a solution to every problem. No matter how hard something gets, with time, there is always an answer.

What would bring someone so low as to take another's life is a question that I have been thinking about a lot. Of course we don't know this man's life, what he was facing, what he had been through, what emotional and psychological problems he may have had. The one thing we do know though is that something pushed him so far that he decided it was worth it to take the lives of 13 innocent people and ruin the lives of many more. Psychological issues are on the top of the list of reasons for murders, but there are no excuses for such an unforgivable act.

This man may had thought that there was no way out or even that there was nothing left to live for. He may had believed that his problems were too big or that his life was too hard for him. No matter what he was thinking, he was wrong. No matter how hard something is, it is never quite as bad as it seems. Look around you. There are orphaned children living on the streets starving, there are people who are blind but trying to live their lives on their own, there are people who can't walk but still strive to be the best people they can be, and there are single parents trying to raise a family and take care of everyone on their own. When we look to these people, we realize that our lives aren't as hard as we think they are. We tend to get caught up in ourselves and forget this. No matter how difficult something is, we can overcome it. The only thing that can stop you from success is yourself. There is always a way out if you want it badly enough. There is always a better life waiting for you to find it. Nothing in this world is bad enough to resort to such violence. Always look to the future of what could be instead of looking at a past that you can't change. No matter how bad something looks, it could always be worse, just don't let it get there. You have to be the best you can be and try your hardest to succeed. Never give up on yourself and you will see how much better life is.

Psycho Teddy

This is completely random, but I love this video. It's amazing. I just wanted to share it with those who don't know psycho teddy yet.

Result Of A Negative Society

I get so tired of hearing the "Mature" adults of this world complaining about how it is the youth's fault that our world is declining dramatically. They blame all of the problems on the younger generations but fail to take responsibility for what they have bred. I am not referring to the actual breading of children but the breading of negativity that surrounds those children. When one takes a step back from this fantasy of blame, they can see the reality of where these ideas that the children carry come from. How does a baby learn to speak? They learn it from observation of those around them. The baby learns their behavior and abilities from those they have contact with. So where do these younger generations learn their ways? They learn them from the culture and world they live in. They are constantly surrounded by the negativity of nudity, violence, drugs, alcohol, and illicit sexual behavior. Is it really a wonder why people turn out the way society creates them?

Overcoming Hardships

No one escapes life without facing obstacles and hardships. Each life is unique in this manner and each obstacle is different than others. Sometimes we think that nobody is going through what we are and that we are alone. Many use this as an excuse for failure. They try to use this excuse of difficulties to fool others, yet fail to realize that they are only fooling themselves.

Today I got the opportunity to hear Dominic Carter speak about overcoming hardships in life. Dominic grew up in the projects of New York City. His father was never around and his mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, leaving him in a tough position growing up. He went though foster care and knew what it was like to be poor, not having anything to eat and no money to live on. As he grew up, he seemed to be an average type person and never thought he would grow into anything special. He figured he would be a product of his environment and end up like the rest of his friends; either dead or in jail. However, this attitude changed the day his guidance counselor told him something. Upon asking for a financial aid packet for college, his counselor remarked “Why waste your time? You’ll either be in jail or dead”. This was the defining moment that pushed Dominic to crave success. From that moment forward, he worked as hard as he could to prove that he was not a failure nor would he be another statistic. As the years passed, he graduated from Cortland in three years with a BA in journalism and continued onto Syracuse University. Now he is one of the leading journalists in America and has gained success which most only dream of. He started with nothing and he’s raised himself up to the top on his own.

The main point to his speech was that at the end of the day, if you have failed, you have nobody to blame but yourself. There are no excuses to be heard because you chose not to give it your all. If you want something badly enough, there is nobody who can stand in your way except yourself. In an attempt to make everyone understand what he meant, he used the example of a train. If a train is on course heading for its destination, nothing can stop it. It keeps going until it stops. That stop is up to the conductor and nobody else. I’m sure you got the reference that the train is your goal and the conductor is you. In the end, nobody can stop you but yourself. When you come across an obstacle, you must persevere and flip the bad into good.

In order to find success in life, you have to be able to learn to turn the negatives into positives. For example, a young girl is in a car accident and loses the use of the lower half of her body. After all of the pain and rough times, she still has a very optimistic attitude and she uses her new personality she has gained from her trials to help her continue on. She took her hardship and turned it into strength. This young girl has accomplished something many people never do. She has learned how to overcome hardships. She has taught herself to live on despite her circumstances. If she wouldn’t had learned this, she would had lost her life, not in the sense of death, but in the sense of never accomplishing anything and allowing time to slip from her until it is too late to get it back.

In order to overcome obstacles in your way, you have to find a way to push yourself past them. You have to find a way to control your mind to believe that you can accomplish anything that you need to in life. You have to train yourself to always believe in your potential and forget about those who tell you that you can’t do something. If you allow yourself to listen to people who are negative towards you, then you are only allowing yourself to fail. If you let this negativity be around you or a part of you, you will never have the ability to push yourself forwards past it. At first you may have the strength, but as time goes by, it removes your ability to succeed and brings you down to a level that is hard to rise up from. When it comes to overcoming your difficulties, everyone has to do it a different way. Sometimes it’s by using the negativity towards you to propel you forward whereas other times it may be using your personal difficulties to drive your success. It does not matter which way you find to move you. What matters is your strength and need for a good future.

It doesn’t matter if you are young or old, black or white, male or female, rich or poor. It doesn’t matter where you start out. What matters is where you are going. The past is gone, but the future is constantly being built. Every decision we make, everything we do, shapes our future and lays down the path of ours to follow. We cannot rely on others to make this path for us, only we can do it. In the end, it is up to us whether or not we want to succeed in life. Hard work is the only way we will ever accomplish anything true for ourselves. There are no tricks and definitely no excuses.

Catcher In The Rye

Author J.D Salinger

For English class we are reading "The Catcher in the Rye". This story is a very intriguing one. For those who have read it, know what I mean, but for those who haven't read it, I will give a brief summary. I must warn, however, that the part I did not like about the book is the language that is used on occasion throughout the whole story.

This story is told by Holden Caulfield, a young teen boy who behaves a little beyond his years at times. He is your typical "troubled" kid. He is a loner, disregards authority, and he has an attitude that turns people away from him. He is afraid to let anyone close to him, so he builds these walls around his personality so people will stay away from him. He figures this is the only way to protect himself from getting hurt. Everyone he loves ends up leaving him in one way or another, and he wants to prevent that from happening again. You also see his quest to find a balance between innocence and maturity as he struggles with over compensating for his age and many a times acting like a fool.

The interesting parts of this book is the fact that he is telling the story from a mental hospital and the fact that you get to see his growing deterioration throughout the book. Set back in the 1950's, the story still relates to today's youth in their troubles facing life. Holden has severe depression and is socially awkward. He doesn't know how to talk to girls the right way, nor does he know how to treat friend. He is somewhat stuck in the past when it was a much easier time. He moves from school to school, but eventually ends up in the streets of New York trying to survive.

This book, despite the language and sexual references, has one of the best stories I have read, and I read a lot.It is a little hard to follow, but once you get into the mind of Holden Caulfield, it makes you question what is really the line between sanity and insanity.

Asking For Help

Today I had to meet a man outside for a delivery of mobility aides for my mother since she just returned from the hospital. A van pulls up, the door opens, and there is a man inside. He introduces himself and we strike up a conversation. His van was extremely cool because it was completely equipped to fit his wheelchair and physical needs. In my opinion it was one of the coolest vehicles, equipment wise, I have ever seen. As I was trying to unload the mobility aides, for my mother, I was having a bit of trouble. Being on forearm crutches, it can be a little difficult to move things at times. So this man suggested I ask a lady walking down the street for help. It is not my custom to ask strangers for help, but I did this time. She was very nice and helped me move a few things. After the van was unloaded, the man and I talked a bit. He had been hit by a drunk driver and now he was bound to an electric wheelchair and forced to live with many obstacles facing him.

After a small chat, the man drove off and I was left there thinking. Going through all the trials that I have faced, I have learned to do anything I need by myself. I learned to either get it done by myself or not have it. This "either-or" attitude is something that helped me survive many hardships. As I stood there thinking, my mind kept going back to the man and how he had no problem asking for help. I learned a very valuable lesson today. That is that I shouldn't be ashamed to ask for help. It doesn't make you lesser or helpless to ask. It actually makes you stronger to put aside your pride and realise you need a little help sometimes. This realization has actually changed me and I hope that it will happen with everyone who feels they can be Superman all by themselves.

Equality Under The Law??

My Government class is very open to where we can talk about anything. Okay, well it's mainly just the teacher and me talking since the rest of the class seems to zone out before the class even starts. My teacher was telling us about this 17 year old guy who got into a lot of trouble for having nude pictures of his 16 year old girlfriend on his cellphone. Just to clear this up before I get into my opinion on this issue, I do NOT agree with the couple's actions, nor do I believe that promiscuity of any sort is acceptable.

So anyways, this 17 year old guy has to be forever labeled a sex offender because of an act that he AND his girlfriend did together. The part that bothers me is that she was mutually involved in this act, yet she had no legal repercussions for it. I then brought up the topic of statutory rape. For those who don't know what that is, statutory rape is defined as "sexual intercourse with a person (girl or boy) who has not reached the age of consent (even if both parties participate willingly)". Please note "even if both parties are willing". Again I do not agree with illicit sexual relations between adult or youth. The thing that bothers me is that the law almost always favors on the side of the girl. This is however the opposite if the girl is of age and the boy is not. Coming back to this.. if a boy and a girl the age of let's say 16 have sexual relations with one another, the law will find the boy guilty but the girl will not be found guilty because she is not legally able to consent to such an act at that age (but a boy is??).

The law has not caught up with the times. Nowadays, women are much more likely to engage in a sexual activity than they used to be. I don't think that the law should force punishment on the guy but not the girl even though the sexual relation was completely mutual. One thing that our government tries to promote is that in the US there is equality under the law. How is this equality if it is biased? I don't care if anyone agrees with me or not, but I see this as completely unfair. The law should consider both parties equally guilty if the act was indeed mutual and not forced.

Slug Reproduction

Today whilst on my way to school, I started a random conversation about slugs with one of my friends. During the chit-chatter of the conversation, a question came to my mind, "How do slugs reproduce?". To search for the answer, I went to one of my favorite teachers. Here is how that conversation went...

(me) "Mr. Mihalko, I have a random question for you"
(him) "Yes, Shana?"
(me) "How do slugs reproduce?".

You should had seen his face drop into that really distorted HUHHH look. It was priceless. Anyways, he didn't know the answer, so I went to another teacher who thought of using Google to find out. Are you ready for the answer of how slugs reproduce?

Here we go... Slugs are hermaphrodites (has both male and female reproductive organs). Once a slug finds it's mate, they entangle themselves in a ball with their portruding genitalia. Once the mating is concluded, each mate bites off the male genitalia from the other, which leaves each slug forever female. Once they decide to mate again, they can only mate with another slug which has not mated yet since it will be the only male mate in this act of reproduction. This is one of those disturbing yet interesting facts to know so I had to share it with everyone.