This is for you, the ones who refuse to sit down when you see
injustice, the ones who aren’t afraid to be themselves
even if it means being friendless, the ones who are told they
are wrong, wrong, wrong all the time by those who
think small. This is for the rebels, the ones who are unhappy
with the world as it is, and are trying to show it what it can
be.
This is for the lone rangers, the champions, the oddballs, the
freaks, the warriors.
This is for the ones of you who refuse to fit into a box that
has been made for you by the people around you, those of you
who would die for your cause. The ones of you who choose
rebellion even if it means gut wrenching pain because you want
the world to change, and you’re standing tall even if the
odds are stacked against you. This is for you, who get up in
the morning, knowing that your day is going to be marred by
pain and heartache and a fight to breathe, to exist just as you
are.
This is for all of you who are still fighting even if no one
believes in you anymore. Whilst everyone who cares for you is
worried about why you didn’t choose the easier way
(‘Just try harder to fit in’,
‘Stop being so angry about things we cannot
change’), what you are doing could be the spark or a
revolution, the change of an entire way of life or the birth of
a brand new way of thinking.
You are ancient ideas in a mortal body, a story, a legend for
years to come. You are the ones who are not afraid because the
truth is by your side, despite all the naysayers who are trying
so hard to make you small. Because you do not hide your scars.
You carry them with pride because they are the stories that
make you what you are. And I’ll tell you a truth, a
secret to carry with you, the stories are all we have, and
stories are the most powerful things of all. In the times of
old, they were fables and prophecies, and in a million years of
human existence they are the only things that are left by our
ancients.
They are the only things that are alive through millennia. And
you, you could be one of them if you keep fighting for what you
believe in. You are the bright spark in a world that has chosen
to succumb to the darkness, but you refuse to die out,
for all the darkness in the world. And do not let that spark
die, ever. Because it didn’t start with you.
It started with Joan of Arc, who still led legions to a
resounding triumph at a time when the people doubted every step
of her young feet, and every thought in her young mind.
It started with Nelson Mandela, who was imprisoned for 27 years
for standing up to a government that was trying to completely
destroy the rights and the dignity of black South Africans.
It started with Galileo who was deemed a heretic and arrested
for standing up for the truth, for science in a world where
only religion and tyranny ruled.
It started with Mahatma Gandhi who freed a nation with non
violence and love from the hate and brutality of its
oppressors.
It started with Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her well
deserved seat on a bus after a long hard day and was arrested
for it, sparking a movement that has never been forgotten.
It started with Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X, and
Susan B. Anthony and Abraham Lincoln and the countless other
heroes in history who refused to fit in, follow the norm,
become one with the rules. Instead they rebuilt the rules, they
broke down walls, they changed history with what they
represented, with who they were.
You are not the first to fight for what is right. But you are
the next to carry a torch to bring light where there is
none.
You were born to hold the flames up high in a world that is
comprised of darkness, giving light and life to those who are
lost. You were born to be a change that no one ever thought was
possible. You were born to make a difference.
The world is waiting for you to rise and change what is wrong
inside it.
Don’t you ever let anyone convince you
otherwise.
—Nikita Gill