What I Believe (Article)

Liz Schylinski ’06 in the Post – Standard

What I Believe
Saturday, November 04, 2006
By Liz Schylinski

I believe it's inevitable that we hurt the ones we love and cut people off in traffic.

We say things we don't mean, kiss people we shouldn't. I believe that reality becomes apparent on Sunday afternoons while grocery shopping.

I believe that blue-skied days come and go without the chance to go for a walk in the sunshine, that time is sometimes wasted, hearts are sometimes broken. But I believe that everyone experiences these things.

It is the lack of attention to these similar, small experiences that creates hate and divides this world. We become obsessed with being right, money, power and greed. I believe we forget our commonality. Sometimes I would like to ask government officials or chief executive officers or big men in big suits: How do you live? I'd like to sit with them for an hour, talking about the people they have loved and lost with, the people who have made them weep and laugh and given them faith.

I have a feeling that their answers would contain themes similar to those of the world's garbagemen, the grocery store clerks, or the men and women who eat at soup kitchens. Whether you make $200,000 a year or $4 and hour, you still have stories about your parents; you have people who have hurt you; you have people who have supported you at one time or another. I believe these things unite us.

I believe coffee is best served black and water with lemon. I believe that magic hides in the smell of dusk in July and in dewy mornings in September. I believe passion can be found in the scribbles falling from the tip of my pen, in the thoughts peppering the pages of Virginia Woolf and in rainy runs.

I believe that everyone should read the Sunday paper, listen to the Beatles and take vitamins. I believe it's important to say thank you at the grocery store and acknowledge that things will fall apart and you will cry. I believe it's important to cry and to learn to be alone. I believe you must take things as they come, that tomorrow isn't promised and the realization of that is sometimes very difficult to comprehend.

I believe that if you care about something you should stick with it, that there are some times when you can change your mind and times when you shouldn't, and knowing the difference is crucial. I believe it's important to have routines, keep promises and respect those who understand if you don't do either once in awhile.

I believe it's important to go to the public library every month for nothing more than a reminder that you are a part of a bigger society and that books and reading and writing are so very important.

I believe it's important to try things out, to know what you believe in and "be the change you wish to see," as Gandhi urged.

I believe we must embrace leadership roles and take chances as they come our way. I believe it's important to forgive, to pay attention, to love the little things: to find the sweat shirt you are most comfortable in and the CD you can't live without. We must create our lives into our own masterpieces.

I believe in "delicious ambiguity," the power of forgiveness, of memories, of simple calls just to say "hello." I believe in the love of my mom, being brave and acknowledging when you are wrong.

I believe that Le Moyne College gets education right in educating the "whole person," that Barnes & Noble is the best place to buy books and have coffee, and that anything you would ever need in life can be found on Erie Boulevard.

I believe that falling in love is hard, but it's worth a shot. I believe that driving and running cure anxiety. I believe in watching reruns of Nickelodeon and Sunday night TV and working hard.

I believe in different ideas and different ways of thinking. I believe in listening, loving and learning to believe in each other.
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