I Ask You This.

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To my parents, teachers at school, professors in university and adults everywhere,

Why did you wait all this time?
What made you live your whole life complaining about things you can already change?
Why didn’t you notice the incompletion in your identities when you were younger? Why didn’t you support yourselves?
Why didn’t you find love? Why didn’t you build your own love if you couldn’t find it?
Why didn’t you choose your own careers? Why didn’t you find beauty in what you were learning? Didn’t you realise the miracles of our minds? Didn’t you stop for a moment to acknowledge the magic our humanity is based upon?
Why didn’t you trust God enough with all His twists of fate and accompanied tribulations? Why didn’t you consider them as challenges? Lessons to learn? Failures to overcome? Bad memories to move on from?

Why didn’t you love life? Why do you feel unsafe in your own selves? Why do you bury hate, anger and shame within you? Why do you conceal your emotions in your very core? Why can’t you admit the truth?

Why do you resort to manipulating others? Why don’t you expect the best in the world? Why don’t you believe in hope, love and optimism?

Why can’t you be happy? Why not smile fearlessly and genuinely? Why not laugh when you want to?

Wait a minute, I don’t think I need to ask you, I have just discovered the answers myself. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to answer me and I’ll see tears forming in the corner of your eyes, helplessness shattering the strength you claimed, releasing the weakness that surrounded you all along.

I know that you were never given a chance to be who you truly are. You never got an opportunity to believe, to trust, to dream limitlessly. You were taught that dreams were a waste of time and completely impractical. They taught you to memorise the many life rules adults before you had written, ingrain them in your mind, allowing you to structure a life that was never lived.

I know that you tried to love, and got disappointed. You relied on others to fulfil the shattered part of your identity, the incomplete, demanding part that always wants more and more; your ego. You thought love was merely a word, a temporary stage of human relationships, one that never lasts— a joke to laugh about. Your parents showed you that showing a glimmer of romance was an act of weakness and foolishness. You grew up to believe that, despite your own nature telling you not to. The dissonance is what makes you lonely, in constant conflict and in shame the whole time.

Nobody taught you to believe in yourselves. To accept fate as a friend, a catalogue to read whenever you feel lost and tired. Nobody patted your shoulder to tell you that life is your teacher; your mistakes valuable lessons, shortcomings mere warnings, and successes treasured rewards. You didn’t realise that power never meant freedom and control was never equivalent to comfort. In fact, control restricts the way you trust the ones around you, and the excessive power limits your sense of identity, it being based on the perceptions of who you rule.

And you dare to teach me how to live life. You dare to show me that this is the truth, and this is what it should be. But I’m not listening to you, because I’ve got my own heart to guide me.I have my own reasoning and mind, my own soul and identity I want to trust and discover. My own interpretation of the world, my own unique love for God, freedom through my lifelong service to Him, acknowledging the potentials of my own humanity through the resources available to me. There is so much beauty and marvel scattered, though you want me to be ignorant. You want me to focus on the restrictions, rules and stereotypes. You want me to be like you, because this is the only choice you claim I have.

I am sorry, but soon you shall be gone, and my generation will govern after you. You don’t control us, we don’t give you the power to. Whatever you want to teach us, we can ditch when you’re gone. God reigns us alone. The world is our limit, not your own narrow ones.

I feel sorry for you. I wish it were different, and I want to help you. I want to take away the sadness in your eyes and bring you life, love and hope. But I can’t do that, I can’t open your heart till the very end. Perhaps I can make you sense that there is light, but it’s up to you to open the doors and let it all in. It’s up to you to be courageous enough to change, take the lead and just be.

Thank you for showing us the difference we want to make. You are a part of our story; the history we will change everything for.

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