Saving Yourself

Everyone wants to be a superhero. We all want to be that person, the one that is universally admired for their strength in character. That dependable friend that no one could live without. The one that saves everyone in their moment of need, and is always remembered for what they did for other people, less so what they have done for themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not for one second that this is a bad way to be, that we shouldn't try to help others, or save people when they most need it, but what I would like to speak about in this post, is the concept of saving yourself.

Sometimes it may seem that in society the people we consider most worthy and admirable are those that spend their whole lives saving others. Obviously, this is an incredible character trait, and something I could only hope to be like, but what I would like to focus on is that sometimes being your own hero, is the best characteristic that we can achieve.

It is when the days are rough and you need to be tough, that we should be turning to our own built up resilience and using our own will power to drag ourselves out of bed. On days like these, when all you have done is got out of bed and the bare minimum, even when you wanted to let life wash over you in a wave leaving you ignorant to that day's drama and negativity, this is what is called being your own hero.

Sometimes you need to work on your own self belief and bravery before you can go out there are save the world, and thats okay. I believe that each of us somewhere wants to save someone else, but if you take all that energy and use it to save yourself, then that is okay too.

Most people can think of a time when they were barely able to keep their head above the water, and if you were able to do this, even with the weight of life attached to your feet, dragging you down, then you deserve a medal, and if no one has told you so, then you are brave and you are beautiful and you got through something that most people could not.

The biggest reason why I write this post, is actually because I believe that we should be doing more to build ourselves up, instead of what the media and outer negative influences insist we do, which is self-depreciate.

I believe that self-sacrifice should not be glorified, but instead we need to spend more time working on saving ourselves and building ourselves, so that we are able to survive the rocky road that is life.

So save yourself, be your own hero, and then when you are ready go out and save the world, just don't leave it until it is too late for you to live a happy and healthy life, as after all, we are only here once.

LF, LR and MG xxx

Reaching For the Stars

It starts with something small, a little seed that gets planted at the back of your mind, which most of us disregard. Secretly, when you think no one is looking, you put together some ideas. The ball keeps rolling, and without even realising it, you have thought up a whole plan for that thing that just a few weeks prior, was just a seed in the back of your mind.

Even at this point, most of us laugh at our own 'delusion' and remain with our feet planted firmly on the ground, reluctant to entertain the possibility of success, or of making our ideas into a reality. Not because we don't want to, or because we have negative intentions, but because we genuinely believe that we aren't capable of doing so.

But what if I told you, that with some perseverance, planning and positivity, you could lift your feet off the ground, and truly touch the stars? When I look at myself I know that for one reason or another I have put a pin into so many things that I have wanted to do, almost always because I am not confident enough in myself to believe I can pull them off.

However, this year I have had a growth of self-belief starting with this wonderful blog, and in one thing or another, I have realised that there are some steps involved but when you do them, you really can make a successful project come to life. I would like to offer some steps into turning your dreams into a reality:

1) Believe in yourself. To be honest, I think of all the things I could say in this post, telling you to believe in yourself is most probably the most important. There will be people that doubt your idea and there will be times when you will doubt yourself, and tell yourself that there is no way that you can accomplish what you have set out to do. Ignore those doubts, because whether you believe they are justified or not, if you just look slightly past them, then you will reach your success. Self-belief is what will carry you through all the time you spend working on your project. It is what will keep you going through the process, as a constant reminder that you can do this.

2) PLAN. I would say that a big part of being able to actualise your dreams is to plan, and plan big. Work out each stage of your project, and all the mini-steps that it will take to get you there. Write down a list of all the things you will need to do in order to achieve your aims, and ways in which you can complete them. In times of doubt or when things seem overwhelming or unachievable, you will look at your plan and feel reassured that you know where you are going with it, and what you are doing.

3) Be Inspired. I think that the best projects are the ones that you are so deeply connected with, that you are going to try as hard as you can to get them going. The ones that you so desperately want to make successful are usually the ones that go the furthest because of your own inspiration and your own drive to make it happen. I think that this is the key to success and is something that you should bare in mind all the time.

I hope that these three tips will help you in reaching for the stars, but most of all, I would like to share an idea that I put together a few weeks ago. I believe that you should always reach for the stars, even if you can't quite see them. That means working as hard as you can, on something you feel passionately about, even if it doesn't feel like it is being successful, or even if you feel like its not quite going the way you want it to. Working hard on something that you believe in, is genuinely one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had, something that I experience daily with this blog, and is something that I would encourage all of you to think about.

Reach for the stars, because you never quite know what magic can happen along the way!

-LF, LR and MG
xxx

"Do More of What Makes You Happy"

As you get older, you notice that time is getting shorter. You get to the age at which you're entering secondary school, where you feel as if you have all the time in the world to have fun, so you go shopping with your friends, take your dog out for long walks and spend time on family picnics, with a bit of homework here and there. Then there are the end of year exams. This cycle progresses throughout your career at secondary school, with your free time being cut shorter and shorter without you even noticing it. Then BOOM. Year 11 whacks you across the face and you realise that your 'end of year exams' actually have an effect on your future, so for a few months you cut off most of your free time and filling it with endless revision, past papers and note-taking, before eventually spending the last remaining moments of your free time sprawled across the desk of scattered papers dozing off.

Eventually, by the time you hit Sixth Form (the last two years of compulsory education), you have a sudden realisation. All of that time you had spent with your loved ones has been evaporated. You haven't left the house aside from popping to school or the library in weeks and you feel confined to the same few rooms in your own house. That time you spent teaching yourself how to play the piano has all gone to waste, as you can't even remember how to shape a minor chord. You don't remember what daylight looks like. You haven't had a meal out in months.

This realisation happened to me two weeks ago, when we began to write our Personal Statements for university. I used to be able to speak about how I had an "ear for music" and could instantly pick out the correct chords and melody to any song on the keyboard. Now I can only remember one song. I used to love to socialise with my friends on the weekends, which rarely ever happens anymore.  Hey, I even used to win at a round of bowling against my friends and family, now I can scarcely remember which finger goes in which hole in the bowling ball.

Now, free time is almost a foreign word to me. Any "free time" is spent trying to retrace the steps of my old skills, completing my book list for university, writing my Personal Statement (just kidding, that's just not happening), organising my life and also the occasional blog post. Even then, that doesn't happen often, as seen by the number of posts by my fellow writers in comparison to me.

What I wanted to get across was that I wish that I had made myself take some more free time, as I regret letting past hobbies go down the drain. I used to look at a piano and rush over to it, desperate to lay my fingers on the ebony and ivory keys. Now, I have that same enthusiasm, but I stare blankly at the keys in wonder of how I lost the skills to play.

Please make sure that you do more of what makes you most happy, as I wish that I had.

-LF, LR and MG

An Open Letter to the UK

Like all sixteen-year olds my age, irrespective of my race, religion or ethnicity, I worry about normal sixteen-year old things: I worry about whether I have done the right homework and what to wear to the oh-so-important party next Saturday night. i worry about if I can afford those concert tickets that I am desperate to go to, and I worry about if that look that boy gave me that one time meant anything or not.

But unlike most other sixteen-year old girls, I worry about something that is far bigger than any of those trivial things:

As a sixteen year old, Jewish girl, I worry about something far greater- I worry about the rise in anti-Semitism, but particularly, the upcoming neo-Nazi rally as well as their decision to burn some of my most sacred books, and shred my Jewish homeland's flag.

Today, I was most alarmed to be informed that not only were people whoa re hell-bent in destroying the very thing I stand for, coming right to Golders Green in an attempt to belittle and desecrate my religion, but they were not going to stop there. They are also going to burn the books that my ancestry is written on. They are going to burn my history as if that will be effective in obliterating me.

In February I was fortunate enough to visit Poland with my year group. As I walked the paths of my ancestry, who seventy years before me were not as fortunate as I, because whilst I walked those same paths' with my head held high, clutching the arms of my extended family, I knew in my heart that nothing will ever do justice to the fact that, even though I walk free, walking is something amongst so many other things that six million of my brothers and sisters will never do again.

It has now been four months since I have returned from Poland, but it saddens me to say that since my return, I have noticed some alarming details that I feel, given what I have experienced, needs to be addressed.

Not only does this neo-Nazi rally remind me of the persecution suffered at the beginning of the Nazi regime that my brothers and sisters experienced just seventy years ago, but it is the burning of the books that hold the holy presence of my religion that is causing me to write this letter.

I am not asking you to believe in what I believe, but instead I am appealing to the human in you- the human that knows that if we enable this group of neo-Nazi's to have the power and satisfaction of knowing that they can get away with degrading me and my people, then it will empower them to go further and further.

Whilst many people argue that it is only a tiny minority of people that are going to participate in this rally, I see it as something else.

I see the beginnings of an extremely familiar trend that has followed my people round since time has begun. I see the sparks of persecution, and I do not like it. I see a chance for people to add fuel to the fire that should have been extinguished at the very least seventy years ago, when one man's hatred led to the mass annihilation of six million of my people as well as five million other people from all different religions and ethnicity's.

I am appealing to the human in you because i know that most of you reading this, will shake your head at the prospect of a neo-Nazi rally, and will acknowledge the kind of danger that this puts me and my people in, but will go no further than to sympathise with the pleas of a sixteen-year old girl.

I am asking you one simple thing, I am asking you to share this message with everyone, so that we turn a generation of by-standers, into a generation of those who seek to ensure that every person in the UK is living in comfortable safety.

I appeal to you because I know that when someone is killed or something is burnt, we reach out far and wide, and we cry as a country for the life lost and the bloodshed. But when the risk seem smaller and insignificant, people are more reluctant to stand up and put an end to what could be the start of something destructive.

So as I close this letter, I ask you as a sixteen-year old girl, who shares the same likes and dislikes, who goes to school and goes out with her friends, to help me by sharing this post and that hopes to raise awareness for help to protect my people.

I chose not to belittle or to humiliate those who have different views to mine, but to acknowledge them whilst reasserting the importance of my safety as well as my family's.

I ask you to share this post, and join the petition because like all other sixteen-year old girls, I just want to have fun, and not worry that the elimination of my people and what they stand for, is ever imminent.

Thank you,

LF, LR and MG

America: The Land Of The Free?

I ask myself a question. A question that millions of black people have to ask themselves everyday, when they are faced with their racist oppressors. The same people that have families, just as they do. The same people that love and are loved, just as they are.

"Do black lives matter?" 

Because as far as America, is concerned, freedom is only about white people. Freedom is for those who have civil rights, and belong to their country. Oh wait. That's right... those who have civil rights aren't confined to a skin colour, because we are in the twenty first century.

And if America really is the 'land of the free' then why, in the last two years have over 200 black lives been taken brutally and unfairly by the American police force, for no reason other than the colour of their skin? 

And why is it, that when a white person is killed in an unjust way, nation wide we cry out, and we blame the system. We get angry, and we fight for justice. 

But when a black person is murdered by those who are supposed to keep the peace, not pervert it, we apathetically sigh, spend a moment contemplating what is going on, but then drop it and carry on with our lives?

BLACK LIVES MATTER. 

It astounds and horrifies me that we live in a world where these murders are allowed to go on. And then when the people of Baltimore stand up and say no more, what happens? They get criticised for standing up and speaking out. 

I don't know about you, but I'm furious. I'm furious that we allow this to continue, in 'the land of the free'. That we allow this type of disgusting, gut wrenching tragedy to continue. I am once again, shocked and appalled by the apathetic nature of our world. 

I wonder to myself what it will take, for the rest to stand up and take notice. Take notice of the god-awful events that are happening. 

I make a plea to everyone reading this: Please, please don't be apathetic. Please, I am begging you, stand up and speak now. Even if you know black lives matter, but it doesn't have a direct effect on you. 

Stand up and speak now, because we have to end this war of racism. 

Stand up and speak now, join me in advocating that black lives do matter.  

-LF, LR, MG