There is always a beginning...

There is a beginning to every story, my story is no exception. I was in tenth or eleventh grade when I first read a quote by a very influential leader to our nation, no it wasn't a president, it wasn't even a male. Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams". But if one were pair that with Mohandas Gandhi's quote, "Be the change you want to see in the world", then and only then would they realize that they have found the secret to success. To this day when I think of the one quote the other quote pops into my head. My name is Janessa Leonard, I am a very strong-willed and passionate person, that is because I have never forgotten the words of these two influential leaders. Neither Eleanor nor Mohandas had an easy life,  they had everyday struggles just like any normal human being would, but they were never known for those moments, because they took those everyday struggles with a grain of salt.  It wasn’t until they were faced with a fork in the road, that they made a decision that would not only change their life but would also change the life of so many others down the road.

 I may not know what my future holds, nor will I worry about it. The only truth that I know is that my future is bright and my future belongs to me. Whatever I dream about, whatever changes I wish to see, they are beautiful and they mean everything. My future whatever it may hold, holds one concrete truth, that is that justice, honesty and integrity are the three things that I will always fight for. No matter what the stakes are Justice must prevail, honesty must triumph over deviousness, and integrity will never bow down to corruption for as long as I live. The list of things that I will fight for hold many more, but those three are the basis of everything I do, with the help of God's will and guidance.

The world we all live in today is losing its beauty is losing its foundation on which it was built, there is more and more deceitfulness from our nations' leaders than there ever was. Living in a world like this makes me so aggravated and irritated to think about the future. The generations before me gave everything they had so that our lives would be simpler and what is my generation doing for future generations? We are tearing down everything that they once worked so hard for, we are not making our future generations lives easier, we are making it more and more complex.

 Here is what I plan to do, I am going to fight for Justice, Honesty and Integrity. I want to make a difference in this world and I'm not going to be able to do that while hiding behind my fears of what other people think of me. No, I can not keep holding in my opinion, I will not bite my tongue nor will I "suck it up". I'm not fighting for the future of my world, I'm fighting for the future of my future children and their children, and many more generations to come. This world needs more people who are willing to step up and say, my children's future has got to be better than this. To step up and say, this is not how this story ends.

 It is time for those who believe in the beauty of their dreams to make a change and build a better future for following generations. Every story has a beginning but does the story that my generation is writing, does it have a happy ending for the generations yet to come?