Tara+Y’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=Title of Speech= Selfless Love

=Text of Speech=

I once read a story about fear- a fear that ran so deep and was so concentrated that it controlled every aspect of those it possessed. This fear was of having too little. In the story there were people who lived anxiously, they kept accumulating more and more, it got to the point where those around them, who were not so fortunate, pleaded with them to give up just a portion of their possessions, but this daunting concern for their own futures clouded the obvious need right in front of them. “No, what if we need it? What if we run out and lose our access to these objects?” they thought. “But we lack these things now, we can’t survive without your help!” the helpless beggars insisted. Those who were afraid built up a wall to keep the beggars out; they lined it with bombs and no longer knew whether or not there were still people pleading outside. Soon they feared more than the loss of their material items, but their lives- they no longer felt safe in the self-destructive fortress they had put up. They were so busy trying to keep themselves from death and desolation that they brought themselves closer to it.

So often we let this fear dictate our lives- the fear of living less comfortably than we are able to, the fear of having the ability to have everything we want, but settling with what we need. And this scares me because I fall to this so often. I want to be comfortable so badly and to appease my every want daily. But then I second guess myself- why must I let my walls grow any higher than anyone else’s?

Eight months ago I entered the land I have always dreamt of: Sierra Leone, Africa. I stepped off of the plane, and aside from noticing that it was really hot, really, really, hot, I saw so much need. Everywhere and anywhere that I stepped a child was begging me for food or water, shirtless and orphaned by the war. There were people lining the street hoping that they could bring a dollar home to feed their families just a bite for the night. I have taken positive HIV tests on mothers and told a nine year old boy that his leg needed to be amputated. But surprisingly, they were happy, despite the hardships- all of them were dancing and laughing in the simplicity of their lives. They realized the gift it was to be alive, if only for just one day. It was there that I actually recognized need and the vast amounts of it that exist. It was there that I realized that some people don’t have reasons to build walls because they don’t have anything to protect.

These things aren’t just 6,784 miles away from us, but they’re in our backyards. We constantly dismiss suffering because we are well off, and after all, isn’t that all that matters? This pain lies in our river bottoms, on our park benches, outside of grocery stores- yet we think that if we close our eyes it can disappear. Maybe if we ignore the single father who lost his job due to recession or the abandoned, mentally-disabled adult, all will be well with the world. In just Ventura we have well over 700 people without homes right outside of our front doors, and there are so many more that struggle just to make ends meet. Our two hands are not meant to be blindfolds, they have so much more potential that we fail to recognize. In the America that I grow up in I want to be surrounded by selfless love, rather than selfish fear.

I don’t want to see the dismissal of the hurt surrounding us any longer. I don’t want to see us striving for more, when so many people have less. Maybe our key to life is to be simple, to have just enough to get by, to actually know what it is to not always have the convenience of our stock-piled cupboards or our mid-night McDonald’s runs. None of us need to upgrade our iPhones or buy another pair of shoes that we already have in six other colors- why don’t we use that $200 to sustain someone’s life or use those extra pairs of shoes cover the feet of those who are bleeding through their soles? We need to take our chisels and jack hammers and bulldozers and knock down this fear of discomfort that we so selfishly hide behind.

In the America I want to grow up in I want us to recognize that while we are building our walls, there are people crumbling down on the other side.

=Cite Your Sources= //Kisses from Katie-// Katie Davis