Sheila Rocker
October 7, 2013
ENG3UI
Ms. Steve
A Quotation to Ponder
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter”- Martin Luther King Jr. We are all silent about something that matters in particular, to ourselves. From being name called or bullied to standing up for something you believe in or feel and keeping secrets from the people you tell everything to. This quote has many different meanings to everyone, but what it means to me is how people can be the trigger that starts the feeling of when your life begins to end. One of the bigger things that I, personally was silent about, was the fact that I was bullied. Constantly throughout SK and grade 3, 5, 6 and 7 I was name-called. The names were repetitive and included “fat” and “ugly” for the most part, but there also was “unworthy of life”, “gross” and “nobody’s friend”. I told absolutely no one for the majority of those 5 years, but when grade 7 came I could not take feeling helpless anymore. My emotions included being upset, depressed and angry most of the time, which was not ‘who I was’. My life began to end because I was quiet about a serious problem, but no one really addressed in school. It mattered to me that girls and boys constantly bullied to build themselves up, but I thought that it did not matter to anyone else because I was told I was a ‘nobody’ which I believed and it seemed small in the big picture of problems . I eventually told someone and it was a long road to making myself feel better, because you never really recover from being that broke down.
When I was younger I was always told to stand up for what you believe in and never let anyone tell you wrong. Once you are silent about a belief you may have, then it never gets heard because someone does not know that there is an idea such as one you might suggest.
One of the issues I struggled with was telling my mom my opinion. That caused problems with trusting each other, going out to friends places or ‘doing my own thing’. If you do not argue with you mom then things typically go along smoothly, but when she always was right, it hurt me because I had nowhere to input my opinion into the issues I was addressing. Eventually it hurt me so much that I had to tell her everything and when I did, being silent stop building