This I Believe.
I believe in everyday small kindnesses and their ability to have an impact in someone’s life.
I watched a video that was about a boy in high school. Everyday, this boy would go to one particular set of doors in his school and in between classes would just stand there, holding open the door for everyone. This was such a little thing, but he did it consistently every day for the next four years. He was beloved by classmates, who just thought it was so thoughtful, sweet, and unexpected. He was voted best liked in his grade, and almost everyone in that school knew his name. When it was time for him to graduate, everyone was devastated- it was almost like losing a tradition, or even a piece of a culture. At the end of his last year, he was asked why he did it, why hold open that same door that many times for that many people he didn’t even know, especially at first. His answer was simple. “I heard that if you do something nice, you make friends. I wanted to make some friends. Now I have friends.”
I believe in loving everyone unconditionally and showing them their own worth in action and speech.
When I was twelve, I was friends with a girl named Aurora. She was a beautiful soul, inside and out, always making me feel comfortable and welcomed. She was sixteen at that time. We sang in the choir together that whole year, having an amazing time laughing and talking. Near the end of the year, she stopped coming to rehearsals. I didn’t know why, but I had enough respect to not press her about it- if something was wrong, surely she would tell me? I found out about a month later that she had committed suicide. She was gone. She had had to drop out of school that last month because she was getting bullied so badly, and at home, the bullying continued in the form of online harassment. I wished I could have helped her. Been there for her. Shown her how loved she was. So now I take extra care, and if I love someone, I am going to tell them. As soon and often as possible, because who knows how badly they need to hear it?
Passion Blog: I could continue with going through the process of a theatre production, letting you in on tricks of the trade,
Or I could talk about The Vampire Diaries and the anguish that goes along with being a fan
Civic Issues Blog: Does the United States government have the right to tell people how they are allowed to express personal feelings of attachment to others of the same gender?
I could also do: What about cuts to funding of the arts to focus on STEM subjects?
I really like your kindness belief. I think it’s a lesson everybody should learn and apply to their daily life. I think the loving everyone unconditionally one can get a little complicated but if you frame it right that could work too!
Great Ideas! The story about the high school boy is very powerful. However, if you do end up choosing this topic, I think you could expand the ending of the story. As Dr. O’Hara said, don’t let the truth ruin a good story. I don’t know what ending I was expecting, but I definitely expected more than the response the boy gave. It seemed like it was going towards a really emotional ending that would’ve highlighted your intended message.
The second idea was definitely touching and would make a powerful and impactful podcast.
I’m excited to see what you choose for your Passion blog since both of those topics sound interesting. Finally, your civic issues topics are very intriguing. I was thinking of highlighting the importance of creativity for my “This I believe” podcast, so I am excited to read what you have in store.
First I would like to start by saying I love The Vampire Diaries so if you decided to write your passion blog on that I would most definitely read it!! Second, I liked your first “This I Believe” idea a lot. However, after hearing some of the examples today in class I am not sure you could use that story since it did not happen to you. In addition, I think that perhaps you could run into an issue with the fact that he did that nice thing in order to gain friends. While this is not an impure intention, it could lead to the conclusion that one should do kind things only for something in return. Finally, I think your civic issues blog about STEM budget cuts has the potential to be very interesting. It might be slightly too narrow to start. You could consider first looking at budget cuts in education in general so that you don’t get stuck part way through the semester.