My Thoughts on the Tragedy at Virginia Tech

I'm sorry to say, but if you haven't read my last blog about my hiking trip, please do not read it at the same time with this one. Unfortunately, possibly my best day in Korea, so far, shared its date with the unforseen tragedy at Virginia Tech. I didn't know all the information about the event then, so I chose to blog about my hiking experience, but in this posting I plan to be a bit more serious and the two blogs will not read well together. I hope not to put anyone off, but if you were expecting to hear about my travels in this blog you really won't. Whether there is a hundred people reading what I write, or just one, I feel the need to share my thoughts, and I encourage everyone else to do the same in whatever venue you have. We all hoped to never see another Colombine. If it was up to us, all thirty-three of those students would still be laughing, learning, and living the best lives they could, with not even a single thought of danger on there minds. And the shooter, Mr. Cho Seung-Hui, would be getting the treatment it now seems so obvious that he needed. However, that's not the way that it happened. Sadly, the world can be a crueler place then we'd like it to be. But what can we take from this event? I ask myself, how can we learn from it, and make ourselves better, because that is really what life is all about. Life is a constant struggle between success and failure. No matter how good or bad you're doing, it is in the act of striving to be better where real meaningful living takes place. We all make mistakes, and we learn from them (if we're smart), and then we move on as better people...hopefully creating a better world. Well 33 students lost there lives without the opporunity to make this place a better world. 33 young minds, in a place of learning, were quieted forever. Minds that might have one day made us laugh, cry, touched our hearts, or saved our lives, no longer have the opportunity to fulfill there dreams. At least not on there own...
But what if we lived our lives a little fuller with the thoughts of them on our minds? What if we told the people around us that we loved them beacause they made us understand that life is fleeting? What if there deaths meant something to the world? Wouldn't that be learning from this tragedy? The simple act of keeping the image, or news paper heading in your mind is not remembering the event. When people talk of really "remembering" a tragedy they actually mean to be saying 'recognize what you have and don't waste it.' You have the choice, they didn't. Do great things, share your talents, make people laugh, smile, love, and do it not only for you but for those who can no longer do it themselves. And at a time like this, the people who lost loved ones need these type of people around them the most.
I have asked the Principal of my school if he would be interested in sending a letter to Virgina Tech, to express our heartfelt condolences. The shooter was no more a South Korean then the shooters at Columbine were American. He was a troubled individual, an individual that does not represent the peaceful people I have met here in South Korea. I hope that a positive outcome of this tragedy might be an outpouring of love and a strengthening of alleys between two countries. If the opposite happens, it may become the bigger travesity in the end. I do also hope that this days events can help to change America's gun controle laws, but that disscussion is for another time.
Tomorrow life will go on as normal for us, I recognize that, but try to share one gesture of love that you would not have just days ago. Tell someone you appreciate them, like them, love them, or miss them ;) I promise you it will make you feel better. And if we can all make that occurance of "sharing" a normal part of our day, wouldn't that make the world better...