I view the world a lot differently now..
At the age of 25, I am what some people would say “a quarter century old” which to some people is 1/4 the way through life..

I am the oldest and wisest I’ll ever be in this moment and in another day I will be even more older and wiser. We learn new things every day, every second of every moment and as I was saying, I view the world more differently now than ever before.. 

When I was young, the world seemed so simple.. I grew up in a small town where the nearest big city was two hours away, I was sheltered.. I was sheltered in the best of ways, from the bad things in the world and the mean people. I was sheltered from the crime and the hatred. I was sheltered from cultural differences and racism. Life was simple, the world was just this blue and green ball that twirled on a stand in my bedroom and it looked so pretty.

To clear the air, I do not mean for this to sound depressing or negative.. My goal in this is to explain how growing older changes us every single day into the person we are. Life throws blessings and it also throws curve balls sending us through loops or as some might call it the rollercoaster of life or some bumps in the road. We all experience things, good and bad/happy and sad. No experience is harder than another person’s. As someone once told me, “there is no harder, there’s just hard.”

You see, I view the world differently now because I live in a big city and I am fascinated with human behavior. I see the world’s flaws in the media, on tv and in person. I have witnessed tragedies and felt the pain of another person. I have experienced joy and excitement through simple pleasures. I have endured great emotional pain and have also overcome difficult situations. I have watched people be loyal and break trust.

My dad always told me that there is evil on the earth along with the good. For some reason, him telling me that brought me some peace, an explanation or validation of some sort to my confusion.

The world is a marvelous place, wonderful, kind, full of good people and it can also be a terrible place full of evil, mean people. My mind has a hard time wrapping around the fact that there are mean people who exist.. I think that is why human behavior intrigues me so much. “Mean” meaning anywhere from making a comment about the way someone looks to physically abusing a child or animal to organizing sex trafficking to stealing money from your own family. To me, mean is the complete opposite of good in so many different ways. Meanness has many underlying factors but ultimately it is a choice.

I know the feelings I get when I am in a negative situation. My body becomes overwhelmed with irritation, my mind puts all of its focus into that one thing and everything else moves to the side. My mind tries frantically to come up with an explanation as to why this is happening such as why did I just see an image of a tortured animal or why did that person say such disrespectful things to me when I was being respectful to them.. Why is when we try to hard to be the good in the world that the negativity tries to break us back down?

At the age of 25, I view the world differently. I am cautious, I have a small circle of people I trust, I work hard, I stand up for anything being put down, I fight for what’s right.. At the age of 25, I have passions beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I have goals that reach the stars. Even though I view the world through a different lense now doesn’t mean I’ve lost hope- it means I’m fighting to keep the hope alive for others. I refuse to be broken down by the obstacles in life. I choose resiliency in the midst of pain. It has been a rollercoaster over the past 25 years, life happened, things changed, memories grew. I have a good life, I was raised by two incredible parents. I was surrounded by good people, and I left the negative ones. I choose forgiveness over revenge. I choose the good over the evil. My hope for the world is that the good continues to overpower the evil. It is my hope that all the people and organizations in this world who are fighting for better things for other people, animals, environment, etc continue their fight and never give up. It is my hope that the mean people in this world find something worth living for other than hatred or greed or selfishness.. My hope is that those mean people begin to love themselves in a way where they become secure and confident. It is my hope that the mean people in this world place themselves in another’s shoes. This world needs more good..