Freedom Writers and a Rant to boot

I was watching the movie Freedom Writers this morning and a few things hit me.
1. There are some incredible quotes/excerpts in the movie that really hit me (I will share those in a second)
2. Real life is good enough to be made into a movie
and, 3. I have a lot of growing to do.

There are a couple of scenes in the movie that made me get a little teary eyed, moved, etc. I have watched it twice now and both times it really impacted me, but for different reasons. My favorite scene is the 'Toast for Change' scene where Hillary Swanks character asks the students to say what they are going to change over the upcoming semester. The passage goes like this:

HS: "Make a toast...We are each going to make a toast for change...and what that means is from this moment on every voice that told you you can't is silenced...every reason that tells you things will never change disappears...and the person you were before this moment - that persons time is over."

The second scene I was struck by was the one where the class brings in the woman who hid Anne Frank during the holocaust. Her character speaks to the class about her experience and then one of the students calls her his hero. This is her reply:

"I am not a hero... I did what I had to do because it was the right thing to do...that is all...we are all ordinary people....even an ordinary secretary or housewife or teenager can within their own small ways turn on a small light in a dark room."

This is the stuff a life of value is created with; Empowered with change, and the realization that it is the ordinary people in this world that are everyday heroes, we can all accomplish the goal of leaving a lasting, positive impact on the world. I decided after watching the movie that I was going to do two things tomorrow. 1. When I have my daily glass of OJ in the morning I am going to make a toast to change (most likely not out loud) to what I want to change about myself and my surrounding environment for the day, and I am going to repeat this every day for the next month and, 2. I am going to try and recognize my everyday heroes in my own little way.

The third thing I learned today during the movie, namely that I have a lot of growing to do, is not just because of something I saw in the movie but as a result of days of thinking about some of the things in my life that I have hated, and which I have taken for granted, but that truly make me me (that was totally a run on sentence).

You wouldn't know it to talk to me, or at least not likely, but I am a fairly emotional person - eternally optimistic, yet, and this is my gemini personality, I am constantly feeling beaten down. I know I am not alone on this, as I have heard from others time and time again how the world gets them down and that realistically an everyday person can't change the world. Back to the emotional thing for a second. I am a hopeless romantic, I keep trying to fight it and hide it, because I feel as though it isn't well received. But, like my optimism, it makes me me. I can fight it all I want but it is my heart, which certainly gets me into trouble, which allows me to say no to all the naysayers and the pessimists, and beat back the negatives and rejections, and push on.

This isn't unrelated and I am going to try and tie this all together.

Like the Freedom Writers, who were in the worst of situations, when we learn to accept that the outside world can be as nasty as it wants, and that we - those optimistic, romantic, heart following individuals - can find it within ourselves to continue on and push through the hurt and the pain and find that place deep down inside where we know, without hesitation, that we are good enough, that we are strong enough, and that we will become who we wish to be and leave this world better than when we came.

So while I don't expect everyone to like me, listen to what I say, or even believe me, I do believe enough in myself enough to not care about all the reasons I can't, and know that for all the cants there is an equal amount of cans.

So let us take a toast to change. Open your hearts, look within, and see that you CAN be an everyday hero.