Obsolete

Free-dom. The definition of freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. When you search for freedom other words like liberty, privilege and independence come up.

This is probably because freedom is different for each and every one of us. For some that might be the freedom of marrying who you choose. For others, it may be the freedom of affording to drive to work instead of walking or taking public transit. These are freedoms that many have, yet others don’t. We are taught from a young age that we are given the right to be free, to be anything we want. We are encouraged to stand up for what we believe in. But when are we crossing the line? What is the difference between standing up for what we believe in, and hurting others?

As many of you know, Canada is in a state of turmoil. We have turned against each other, like many other places in the world. We have lost life-long friends. Everyone is divided. You can’t open Facebook without knowing everyone’s political stance. We have taken our freedom and turned it into selfishness. We ask ourselves how others can believe what they do, without examining ourselves. We judge people by what we see, instead of understanding why they are a certain way. When I was younger, the most important lessons I was taught were not to judge a book by its cover and to eat my oatmeal so I grew some hair on my chest. A time when we were empathetic and comical. Ah, the good ole days. I never thought that we would be raising our children in a time where we had restrictions on who they could play with, or how many family members we could have over for Thanksgiving dinner. But, here we are. And the worst part is, we had to have known eventually things would change. We took advantage of normalcy for so long. Playing until the street lights went out to send us home. Family dinners every Sunday. Tradition is something that is very important to me. I want our children to grow up remembering that we ate the table together, just like I did. Some of my best memories were around my parent’s kitchen table. I am so thankful to have had that. I know that everyone did not grow up in a loving and safe environment. Although I am worried at times about our future, I am still happy and hopefully because of all the progress we have made. Self-love/body confidence. Women empowering women. The Black Lives Matter movement. The education of the oppression, poverty and violence of the Indigenous population. We have done so many amazing things, but we still have such a long ways to go.

So how do we push forward? How do we move past this together? Whenever I get stressed or overwhelmed I go back to the basics. Things that seem so obvious, that we were taught at a young age. Treat others how you want to be treated. Hold the door open for the person behind you. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t talk about politics at the dinner table. Greet strangers with a smile, even if it is with your eyes because they can’t see your beautiful face. I understand that our world cannot be fixed with smiles and gestures. But we need it now more than ever. Small gestures turn into hope. Hope that one day we can live in a simpler world, where we won’t take advantage of the things we thought were obsolete.