This I Believe

Halina Pinkston
Mr. Williams
Hour 2—AP English
November 6, 2014
I believe in a new yesterday. New yesterday, how strange to read these words together. New yesterdays are what we call second chances. But second chances to do what? I have realized how divided our society really is. Not only the society as a whole, but each individual group even our own minds. We grew up in a bubble shaped around our culture, our differences, our rules, our friends. Eventually that bubble isn’t a soapy ring that can be easily broken but a concrete sphere with no way to see the rest world. We section and divide ourselves between groups and even then we section off the mind to act a certain way around the people we are with. Lately, I have become friends with a group of people I never dreamed of talking to. “I don’t belong,” my very first thought with being with these new people, but they didn’t seem to notice that I shouldn’t be there, and they welcomed me. Is it fair to judge so quickly based on their differences and the prejudices already laid out for them? Yesterday, maybe. Today, throwing caution to the wind, we overlook the prejudices associated with people and get to know them the real way.
Fearing the consequences, we step back and let others do things for us. Recently, I witnessed bullying first-hand. I am ashamed to say I was not the one to step in and help. My friend stood up to them and told them to stop, but all she received was being laughed at and made fun of. We all have our bad weeks and breaking points, and that was her breaking point. She sat down and gave up and began to cry. I sat next to her and we listened to my music for a while. I noticed how the group didn’t even realize they were hurting people; to them they were simply having fun.   This can be even worse than people trying to hurt you. When someone is intentionally trying to hurt another, they say things they know will hurt; when someone is joking and says these things, no one knows if they were really...