Thursday, June 30, 2011

Every movement starts with...

Everything starts with one step. Everything begins with one roll, one movement, and one voice. Nothing has started taking place without one of these things happening. Everything happens for a reason; everything you do changes something in someone else's life. It can be for good things or it can be for bad things. I believe every choice you make, even the small ones, you make at a certain time in a certain place. I'm not saying it's fate. But everything is for a reason.
I got cancer nine years ago. This is going to sound strange, but I'm glad it happened. If I never got cancer I never would've become a disability rights advocate. I would've never met the first lady of Syria, I never would have gone to conferences to meet amazing people, I never would've made it this far and felt so proud. Everything I have ever gotten I have earned. How many people can stand up and honestly say that, from the bottom of their soul? How many people can know more than anything that the best thing they know how to do is live and live for the right reasons? I feel like it's within everyone to change the world. The challenge is to look within yourself and believe--believe it so much that its the only thing you can think about. I survived cancer, heart break, graduating high school, and finishing my first year of college. I work, I educate, I strive to do my best, and I believe that others can change if they want to. That change in the continuous cycle that affects everyone is necessary. I generally think people are good. I don't believe anyone is bad. I feel like education is the best tool to combat ignorance and arrogance.
So how do we educate people to understand that differences aren't bad, just different? For some reason in our society we have decided difference is threatening and bad. There is nothing natural about patriarchal society, eugenics, genocide, forced sterilization. Our society has made us think that the man-made concepts are the truth and are what's expected of us. As a woman and a Latina I feel it that everyone should educate themselves and find out what they believe for themselves and not just listen to what we are told. On June 24th New York became the 6th to allow same-sex marriage. That is incredible and sad because not all people have this right. Not all people are treated equally and not all people understand why this is.

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