“Be a voice, not an echo.”

Six words. Six words that articulate the articles I write. I want to be a voice for my generation where other’s voices fail. Where my own voice fails. On this site, there is no one interrupting me. There is no one excluding my opinion simply because it does not conform to their social morals. I can talk about anything that pertains to my own beliefs, and in that, I hope they pertain to other’s as well. I want my voice on issues plaguing my generation to cause them to stand up. Volunteer. Study. Be better than whatever it may be holding you back. Don’t let others try to tell you your dreams aren’t worth it. Make a difference in your community, your social group, or even yourself. We need to stop “echoing” our parents and our grandparents and begin making a voice for ourselves because if we do, then people will start listening to us. They will start hearing us not in terms of teenagers but in terms of adults. They may not stand with us because maybe they are still standing for their rights from their generation, but they will understand us and they will not stand against us. There is nothing stopping us from stepping up to the podium and standing up for our rights, our beliefs, our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams; nothing at all except for our own unwillingness to defend these things. We are not mindless teenagers focused solely on their phones and social life with no plans for our future because our parents make all the decisions. We are young adults on the road to the rest of our lives fighting to make every day better than the last. We are the generation of stress bad enough to make us stay at home for days. We are the generation where we believe love is a dying hope. We are the generation with mental illness sitting silently in the back of our minds. We are the generation where previous hate and segregation is being forced upon us. I say enough is enough. Stop being an echo. Stop repeating what others are saying because it’s the most popular thing. Have a mind. Have a voice.