I never realized how much control and influence the people I interacted with had over me. Looking back, I feel kind of stupid to have missed it. I never really looked beyond what was right in front of me, and I kind of only self-selected narratives that would comfort me and reinforce my preconceived views of the world. I was a coward. It's taken me sometime to admit and process this but I'm comfortable being honest about things now.

I was a coward in the worst way. I was too scared to make decisions for myself. I was too scared to truly stand-up for myself and others. I want to be specific when I say stand-up, because it's not that I didn't stand-up, it's not that I didn't speak out against injustices, but I was too scared to truly stand up and actually do something to push change. I realize now that all the standing up I thought I was doing was just following others who were making a buck on the other side of injustice. I am so frustrated with myself. I can see now that all I was doing was just perpetuating the state of play of the status quo.

Maybe it's a generational thing. All those things I thought I was doing to help people, looking back over the past 5 plus years, I can see that then didn't really affect anything other than people's wallets. I knew some of it was wrong at the time, but I convinced myself otherwise and that was wrong of me. I'm not going to do that any more. I'm not going to hide behind others anymore. I'm going to speak out and say "right matters."

Let's do this together.