Take away my favorite jacket, and you are just taking away a piece of garment.

Take away my most precious belongings, and you are just taking away replaceable objects.

Take away the home that’s so close to me, and it’s fine because a home is just a place.

Take away my degree or any equivalent, and you just take away a piece of paper.

Take away my right to speak, and it’s also fine because I never needed a platform or a room full of applaud to start stating my opinion.

Take away my achievements, and you are taking away medals and trophies.

But you see,

When you take away my style, you are taking away a piece of me.

When you take away the memories behind all my precious belongings, you are stealing the incidents that helped in making who I am.

When you take away my family and friends, you are breaking my safety net and you might eventually paralyze me.

When you take away my education and all the experiences I gained, you are robbing me of all the time I spent.

Take away my reasons for speaking and the reasons behind the words I articulate, and you are taking away what pushes me to fight when I see no reason to keep going.

But then again, you see,

You can’t take away these things because they are things that I created on my own. They’re not objects or properties that travel from a person to another. They’re values and principles that were carved in my heart because of all the things I’ve been through. Beliefs that won’t shake apart due to the circumstances around me or even the people around.

So, here’s a moment for each of us to reassure ourselves that no matter what happens, the one constant variable that will never change is ourselves.

No matter how scary it might seem; no matter how much we either love or, unfortunately, criticize ourselves continuously, we have so much power to be where we want to be and we can be anywhere and become any person because eventually, all the things that anyone would like to take away from us, are things that don’t define who we are.