This I Believe

By A’niya Williams, high school senior

I believe in independence, self love and equality. All through elementary and middle school I got bullied and people would pick fights with me for whatever reason I didn’t understand because I was always so quiet. That made me very insecure and depressed. I never really talked to anyone about the issues I was having because I felt like no one could help. When I got to high school I got a new start, and started to see my value, and what I am capable of. This is why self love is so important because if you love and respect yourself, nobody can tell you different. Self love is also not letting another person’s needs come before yours, and not settling. I believe this is very important because if you don’t love yourself it is very hard to love someone else. 

When I was younger I was alway more on the dependent side. When I started to get a little older and started having relationships I would depend on them to make me happy. Then when I moved away my whole attitude and perspective changed. I got a job and started to do as much as I could for myself so my mom could have a little less stress. Also it felt good to not have to ask for something that I wanted. 

I believe independence is important because you can’t always rely on someone to do everything for you, or make you happy. There is a time in everyone’s life where they have to go out into the world and live their own life. It is a really good feeling because you know u did it on your own. 

Lastly equality. Equality is very important to me because when I grew up there wasn’t a lot of it especially in school. Growing up in school as a minority was very hard. I was one of few mixed/ black race at my schools. Teachers would treat me differently and I never really put the pieces together until later in my life. I believe equality in the USA is fake and it’s just here to make people think everything is equal. In reality nothing is equal, because no one is given the same thing when they are put on this earth. Equality is very important to me because it is a right that everyone should be given.