As a general rule of thumb, I don't immerse myself in negativity. I watch the news for weather updates because that's about as much as I can take most days, and my mother has forced me to at least become observant about that part of current events. I avoid conversations about politics because in my family there is no resolution, only a cloud of doom hanging over whichever election, political event, or national headline may be in the spotlight at that time. I love my family, so I avoid topics like Target, Hillary Clinton, and even history because I would rather enjoy the time that we have together than fight over topics that won't be changed through our own arguments.

I avoid my jaded past like a chubby child avoids stalks of celery. Instead, I made a pact with myself not too long ago to live happier than what was expected of me. I've dealt with bullies all my life, dysfunctional families and more deaths than most people my age, which leads us to the whole jaded past. However, in spite of the ignorant bliss that I try to uphold, there comes a time when enough is enough. This past week has been a wake up call of sorts for me. First, the massacre in Orlando, an event so horrible that it caused even my family of conservatives to take a step back, and it doused cold water down my spine. As a straight, Caucasian female, I'm only one for three in the minority game, so mostly I get the opportunity to live as ignorantly as I choose. My point is that this tragedy, whether it's truly a terrorist attack, as they are now labeling it, or a hate crime, needs to be a wake up call for others as it was for me.

So, in the aftermath of Orlando, I've been going back and forth on topics for my article this week. I wanted to write something that would be an homage to the new fire that has been lit inside of me, a burden that twenty-somethings now carry. I wanted so badly to write about Orlando, but I didn't think that I had the ability to do the victims and their families justice. I almost wimped out completely with another beauty or humor article. Then, as I was scrolling Buzzfeed last night, I found a man who articulated my own thoughts better than I ever could on my own.

Now, I realize that the following information may be criticized by those who either believe that the Holocaust didn't happen or that the historical event is too taboo to be related to current events. I have incurred each of these opinions since my own interest in the genocide was sparked in elementary school. I was deemed weird, as a young student, for the interest that I had in Hitler's reign and Nazi Germany. While everyone was reading "Junie B. Jones," I was reading "The Diary of a Young Girl." So, when I happened upon this Buzzfeed video of a man's story as a survivor of the Holocaust, I watched even with the knowledge that my viewing, in the face of insomnia, would make it that much harder to fall asleep afterwards.

In this video, graphic images display the trials that Henry Oster endured in Nazi Germany. He talks about the different moves that he made from one concentration camp to another, and the German Shepherds who could have quite literally destroyed him when the Gestapo knocked down his door. He recalls how his father simply laid down and died under duress from the living conditions, how he knew he would never see his mother again after they were separated upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau when he was 15-years-old and of how suicide by electric fence or a gunshot from the officers was not uncommon. In his story, Oster mentions that he had to steal food to survive on the rations that the prisoners were given and that the risk of his thefts were as horrifying as they were necessary to survive.

I will admit that I'm an emotional person. I cry at episodes of "Undercover Boss." I am way too attached to the people that I care about. I always have to tell my mother that I love her before we part ways, even if we're fighting, in the case that something might happen to one of us before we meet again. However, this video didn't make me cry. It didn't ensue this feminine need to care for this elderly man who endured more than any one person should in a lifetime. Instead, it enraged me.

Here is this man, this survivor with numbers etched into his skin forever reminding him of the family that he lost and the life that he had to fight for for all of his years in torture. He mentions all of the genocides that he has lived through since the Holocaust, the career he built in the face of his past, and the milestone of making it to 80-years-old in spite of the fact that realistically he shouldn't have been able to survive in the conditions that he did and in spite of the fact that many like him did not survive.

Meanwhile, we as Americans fight over the petty, mundane rituals that include going to school, eating our vegetables, going to work and arguing with friends and family. We need to wake up. As I'm

writing this, I relate more to the inhabitants of the 1960's who tore off their bras and threw flowers at the war in Vietnam. I want to stage a sit-in in hopes that someone with actual power will listen. I want to paint peace signs all over my body in order to reach my generation, those who will come after me and those that have come before me. I want to scream that this man has incurred true horror in his lifetime, and we should be grateful that those of us who haven't had to stand in the smoke of gas chambers really could stand a reality check. At the end of the video, he comments on the horrifying similarities between Donald Trump and Hitler. In the interview, Oster says, "Are we actually going to build a fence around our country and make a ghetto out of the United States? Are we going to have 11 million people sent out and made refugees? I just simply cannot accept that America goes the way of Germany at one time." These are the same fears that I've had since first hearing about Trump's intentions to run for President of the United States. I won't make this a political argument simply because as soon as politics come up, defenses rise, and no one listens to one another. In the same manner, I will not claim defeat in the face of horror. It's not doomed that our world will end as soon as a new president takes over. It's a state of mind that will lead to a new way of life.

So, I can't stop the war or the American democracy's seeming decline. I can't spend my time feeling sad for Henry Oster or the millions of other innocent lives that were lost in the genocide that he survived. I can't change someone's actions or they way that they choose to live their life. These would all be futile on my part. Instead, I can choose to accept people without focus on race, sex or orientation.

I can choose to hold the door open for somebody without condemning those that I meet every time I'm given the opportunity. I can take responsibility that I have as an American to uphold freedom as a way of life rather than a word on our currency. I can choose to fight the social norms that my ancestors have taught me while creating my own ideals with the growing population and society that surrounds me.

After having the opportunity to learn about our Nation's history, the history of civilization and society and the history of our allies throughout the world over the past 16 years, I can't help but wonder how we keep growing in some areas while simultaneously ignoring that growth. I wonder how we avoid using that growth to heed the warnings of our ancestors.

I can only take responsibility for myself and the habits that I will work harder to break in the future. I'd like to say that I'll never take another menial job for granted or that I'll face every new assignment that I'm given with a smile because it's an opportunity that I'm lucky to have, but I won't say that. Instead, I hope to carry Oster's words with me for a long time.