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Why do we struggle? We struggle to change; we struggle to evolve. We struggle to understand our own personal path and the trajectory of the world. We do it to understand science or to understand God. We struggle to be happy, or we struggle to survive. Through all of our variances in genetic make-up, all the idiosyncrasies we reveal in our different forms of behavior, and all the religious beliefs we hold fast to, struggle is universal. No matter who you are, you will struggle, and you will change in some way because of it.
Most of us don't choose our struggle - it finds us first. When we're born, in our early years, in the middle of our lives, or the end, there's always something that grates against our souls and tests our characters.
For my cousin, it was a heroin addiction. I didn't know anything was wrong - every time our families spent time together, he would unfailingly make everyone break down in laughter. He was a naturally witty and kindhearted person, and when I heard the news...I was in shock; sometimes the saddest people seem happy. With all the suffering in his life - outward and inward - he turned to drugs and couldn't stop. He finally pulled himself together not too long ago and went to rehab. He lives a completely different life now. My cousin has gone back to all of the people in his life whom he had hurt - the storeowner whom he had worked for and had done a horrendous job, his family members whom he had injured emotionally - and he's apologized to them , and tried his best to make amends. He is an adult now, working desperately to continue on this new path and find the willpower to overcome the urge to fall back into easy habits - and he is succeeding. After what he's been through, the challenge of addiction and any other obstacle that could stand in his way seem easy to overcome.
For someone else very close to me, his struggle was homosexuality. This is not at all to say that this is something anyone should suffer from, but it is something that homosexuals, unfortunately, suffer as a result of. People are so afraid of what they do not know, of what they do not understand; it's so easy to be afraid of the dark. I am envious of the confidence that this person had to make his orientation known in a world where people still find offensive the things that others cannot control. I am envious that he knows the consequences, and he knows that he will suffer for it unnecessarily, yet he has no fear. I am envious that he continues to smile no matter what.
For my closest friend, it was illness - a physical suffering. It changed me almost as much as it changed him, or at least I think so. Doctors, surgery, good news, recovery, bad news, surgery. Every night I sat in bed thinking, wondering if he deserved what he had been given...wondering why bad people get more than they deserve, and good people get less...and eventually wondering if wondering about deserving things was productive at all. It's not. Someone told me that life is about reacting to what's given to you. My friend looked at life a whole new way because of what was given to him - the illness, the surgery, the side-affects - and he made me look at life differently too. He appreciates life - he feels the pushes and pulls around him, and assesses whether there's even a point in fighting the natural movement of existence. He braves every new obstacle like it was the first patch of friction he'd ever encountered on his journey. This person changed from my closest friend to a hero.
Not all struggle is involuntary, however. Although normally detached from religious practices, I decided to test my willpower and fast every day for a month last year during Ramadan, a Muslim holiday. From sunrise until sundown, I would not eat or drink a single thing. I still wonder why I was so resolute in my decision, even after being discouraged by my parents and grandparents. I wonder whether it was because I wanted to find religion, or if it was to find the strength in myself. However, as the last sun set and the last prayer was called, a realization came to me that maybe they were one and the same – a religion of the soul that everyone could follow in addition to whatever else they believed in; an internal well of strength to draw upon in times of doubt. It was a faith of introspection and determination. From struggle, I had achieved understanding, or at least something like it.
So I advise not to avoid struggle. Of course I'm not telling any of you to do drugs or search for a sickness, but challenge yourself in whatever way you can. To scratch the surface, to have all doors opened for you instead of opening them yourself, is just not enough - it doesn't change you. Struggle so you can accept the immutable, the unchangeable, the implacable, and discover whatever there is that you can influence and make a difference. For example, we cannot escape history or hope to change it, but we can strive to change the conditions of the future. There is always power within our grasp to accomplish this, but we have to be particularly creative sometimes.
I remember the struggle at Seeds of Peace - an international camp for coexistence in Maine that brings together Palestinian, Israeli, Pakistani, Indian, and American teens to discuss and promote peace in the next generation of leaders. We teens were split up into several dialogue groups comprised of various members of the Middle Eastern countries, Israel, and two from the American delegation. These dialogue sessions lasted for four hours every day except Sunday, and the mood of these meetings rose and fell with the memories of what happened in the last one.
I remember the first dialogue session - all icebreakers. I hate icebreakers. No amount of icebreakers can really help you "get to know someone." Only when people talk about something that they truly care about - that strikes against their hearts - do you really learn about that person's true identity. And that's what was so interesting about Seeds of Peace...it required you to forget about your identity, but find it at the same time. Forget who you're supposed to be - sever all the ties to the conventional ideology - and find the identity that was built on the foundation of your personal beliefs. We're all people, we're all ideas - that's who we are. So the struggle was to separate oneself from the norm..."I'm a Palestinian", "I'm an Israeli". No, this is my name, I hope for justice, and I hope for peace.
That was not how it began, however.
It really began with the second dialogue session. Again, this session commenced with another icebreaker, and after giving some small tidbit of information about myself, I sat back and began to zone out. Of course, I was interested in all of these people and what they had to say, but I had heard it the day before. The real process began shortly after as a Palestinian camper began a story about what his life was like, and how it was to cross through the many Israeli checkpoints that had been set up across Israeli and Palestinian territory. He talked about men and women waiting to get through to get to the hospital, to their jobs, or their homes. The camper then began to talk about the borders of the two countries, and an Israeli teen interrupted him politely and said, "Well, excuse me, but Palestine doesn't really exist."
There was a several second lull, with many people shell shocked, unable to quite place their emotions. Then, the room exploded. Palestinians started yelling with anger in their eyes, and Israelis started yelling back. The two Americans in the room, an Israeli-American girl named Molly whom I had been friends with since the first day of orientation, and me, a Palestinian-American, looked at each other and remained silent as the first war ensued. What could we possibly say?
The next couple days built off of the emotion of the first. Dominating personalities clashed, and all fell behind the banner of their countries. Even we Americans felt the responsibility to choose a side, and given our respective backgrounds, we fell in stride with whom we felt most similar. Even the two appointed facilitators for our dialogue group seemed to lose control of the group, and lose their senses of hope. It felt like we were spinning out of control, and that we couldn't find any handhold to climb out of this ditch. My group struggled with each other, trying in vain to make those of opposite minds understand just how justified one side felt they were, and how unfounded the other side's argument was. This accomplished nothing - only hostility and a deep, deep frustration.
So one day, maybe a week and a half in, the facilitators came into the room to see us all sitting there in our normal groups...Palestinians were sitting next to Jordanians and Egyptians, the Israelis all sat together on the other side of the room, and I remained on the outskirts of the Palestinian group, with Molly sitting next to me. (We might have disagreed on certain things, but we had never lost our relationship as friends, as two people who could talk and make each other feel better about mostly everything). Because certain circumstances had stopped the Palestinian teens from Gaza from coming, both sides were equal in numbers.
Regardless, the facilitators asked everyone to put their chairs against the walls and lie down on the ground. So we did what they said - all of our heads pressed up against each other. "Everyone be silent," they said, "and close your eyes." I closed mine, hoping everyone else had done the same. "Now, we want you to think of the saddest thing that's ever happened to you." A long silence ensued, and they asked us to share.
I spent hours listening to stories of ultimate hurt, anger, and loss. I heard stories of holocaust memories, insecurities, and fears of rocket attacks and violence. I listened to stories of bulldozed homes, walls of imprisonment, frustrations, and the deaths of loved ones. I listened to human beings expressing their problems to other human beings in hope that they would receive them with open minds and open hearts. There was no comparison of whose struggle was worse, or who lost more, or who had the most reason to hate. There was just simple understanding. Everyone suffers, everyone struggles, everyone can relate and sympathize.
When we got up and left the dialogue room, things were different. People were in tears, and the most fiercely opinionated people in the room were the most broken-down. Palestinians clapped Israelis on the back, and sorrowfully smiled with irrefutable understanding. Israelis hugged Palestinians, and cried with them.
We all changed. Our group, the next generation, desired a change for the future - a new approach to an old conflict...an end to the suffering. We wanted to break the cycle. Cycles are the natural progression of life, but only when they are broken do we see progress - a departure from the norm, a different path "less travelled." The teens at Seeds of Peace wanted to break the cycles that they saw within their own countries - cycles of hate and inaction. While at Seeds of Peace, we tried to open a direct line of communication to do just that. It seems so interesting that as more and more lines of communication are established - telephone calls, texts, e-mails, Facebook, Myspace, television, magazines, or whatever else - the quality of communication seems diminished. Nothing is as powerful as two voices, two sets of ears, and two sets of eyes to see the truth. This is what we tried to do at Seeds of Peace - listen, learn, and look to the next step, no matter how far we stepped out of our normal spheres of existence.
We can choose to stay in the safety of where we live - of what is comfortable for us - but as we look to an uncertain future that requires more and more interconnectedness, we must choose to struggle with the answers that will bind us as a human race. No matter what boundaries you think are being placed around you, you have to push against them. React to the struggles that present themselves, and act with the knowledge that you gained from the hardship. That is how we must go through life - like pieces of driftwood, changed by unforgiving elements, becoming infinitely more interesting than when they first entered the water.