“Treat others as you would like to be treated,” Harry J. Gensler said. This statement, or “Golden Rule,” is a lesson we all learned at a very young age and, if followed, issues such as bullying, racism and discrimination wouldn’t exist.
The biggest question is: Why can’t we, as humans, be good people morally instead of ethically? Delivering kindness to others is something we should all do because we want to, not because at some point in our lives, we’re told to. This command to be good could come from influences, public opinion or even religious views.
For the past two years, presenters came to the Freedom Area School District to inform students on Rachel’s Challenge. The goal of this challenge is to encourage students pledge to “be kind to others” and “start a chain reaction.”
The first time they came to FHS, I walked back to class and I didn’t feel better about myself or have the sudden urge to change. My biggest feeling was disappointment. I was disappointed that our society and school needed a group of people to come in and tell us we need to be better people, and that the students actually considered changing themselves within the blink of an eye.
All across America, these presenters go from school to school, telling students about how they should change their lives and to start being kind to everyone. This particular presentation went on discuss one specific person, Rachel Joy Scott. Rachel’s life and story had such a large effect on so many people. I couldn’t comprehend how her story could suddenly change a bully into a saint in the matter of an hour. This program is encouraging students to accept everyone and be a good person and that’s great. However, the problem with society is that people should’ve been doing this long before anyone had to tell them to.
After this assembly, students had the urge to tell everyone what was hurting them deep down inside and confess all of the wrongs they had committed against others. Countless tweets, posts and statuses were made pledging kindness to the world. This was wonderful; people were being nicer and treating each other better— but that only lasted about a month.
According to BullyingStatistics.org, 77 percent of students have stated that they’ve been a victim of some type of bullying throughout their lives. This statistic shows how little we, as humans, use the morals we have grown up learning and developing.
Most people grow up building the morals that they feel are right and wrong. In many cases, people choose to change the world for the positive, but others don’t. Where did the morals go that were instilled in our heads?
In certain situations, we can see people picking on the disabled for the differences they have from others. We read about acts of hatred from all over the world. People sit around watching TV or reading countless articles and feel sympathy for the victimized parties, but it’s more likely than not that they’ve committed a similar act of hatred themselves.
We should want to change and fix our lives because we have our own needs. Being a good person shouldn’t be for religious reasons, influences or the public opinion. It should be for yourself and the sake of others. Instead of using these as excuses, we all need to find the true meaning of general kindness.