As children, we're taught in school to treat one another how we want to be treated. We called it the Golden Rule. But now, as "grown ups," the world around us isn't so simple. We lack the basic skills that were instilled in us as kids. Compassion, acceptance and basic love are all stray in our society.
Lin-Manuel Miranda said in his Tony's acceptance speech, "We chase the melodies that seem to find us, until they’re finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us, that nothing here is promised, not one day." The mass shooting in Orlando goes against our Golden Rule. What happened to the simplicity of childhood? Now we kill our own people over what race, gender, sexuality and religion we are. What happened to us?
Growing up, I never feared anything. Now I fear a lot of things. The 49 people that lost their lives on June 12 in Orlando were together in a place where they could escape the fear of not being accepted. Someone took that away from them. My fears don't near measure up to those of people that are considered "different" in our world, but they shouldn't have to. We should all be scared of things like snakes, mice and the boogie man that lives under your bed, not of each other.
Miranda continued to wrap his speech with the statement, "We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last long. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside." It's a statement that says so much about how we should be living. Not in fear, but love of one another. We are all humans. Somewhere, somehow, we need to find the compassion, acceptance and love that came so easily as children, and start treating each other as just that: Humans.
