give peace a chance.

today we remembered columbine.

thinking back to april 20, 1999, i can't remember every little detail.

but it's surprising how much i do remember.

we weren't allowed to go out to recess because of a lightning storm.

i remember being slightly confused, since there didn't seem to be a cloud in the sky.

shortly after, i was pulled out of my third-grade class by my dad.

i asked why he was bringing me home early,

and he said that there was a shooting at the high school.

i didn't think much of it... i guess that in my mind, violence occurred every day in high school (i was clearly jaded by movies.)

when i got home, i realized the tragedy of the situation.

i spent the rest of the day at home, watching the same news pieces play time after time.

worried, confused, curious.

and when i think about our world currently, i feel the same.

today, my mom went shopping at our local mall in littleton.

she was told she needed to evacuate the mall because of a "fire."

she thought there was just a small fire in a corner of the mall,

so she didn't take the situation too seriously.

turns out, someone had placed a bomb in the mall,

along with two propane tanks, right by the fire.

i'm so grateful that the bomb didn't go off-- that my mom is okay.

are these two dates correlated?

who knows.

what i do know, is that these events could most likely be avoided.

dylan klebold and eric harris brought bombs and guns to columbine because they were treated poorly by their peers.

granted, they had some serious psychological issues, but the bullying they endured from their fellow students led to their terrifying actions.

if we were all a little bit more mindful to those struggling around us,

a little bit kinder,

i think that some of these tragedies could be avoided.

a few less people would suffer,

and less conflicts in the world would arise.

i'm no ghandi, but i think peace is really great.

what do you think?

be the change you want to see in the world.

-ghandi