Life At Random — The Chapel Bell

fourth year paria fakhrai

Sometimes I think how vastly different my life could have been, all from the randomness of my birth—the luck of it, really. Stories from my parents, ones I’ve only heard slight variations of from other immigrants from other places, tell of a life far removed from one you or I could ever know. Lives of war or struggle, lives tainted by far less opportunity. Stories of a life that could have easily been my own— a reality I was but a generation away from knowing. Drawn at a complete random, we’ve all been given a life many can only imagine. Somewhere on this Earth, today, there are little girls daydreaming of an education they will not get. There are women walking in the desert heat for miles on end for a gallon of clean water. Men, hardly of age, forced to defend countries that do not defend them. The thing about the randomness of life is so many have a likelier chance than not of living a life that can never reach for the stars, because the opportunities are nonexistent. We may have our own struggles as a nation—struggles we must continue to fight the good fight for—but the bigger picture is, at the least, we have the chance and the opportunity to fight them. We may disagree on our views, we may say the grass looks greener on some other side, but the truth of the matter is we are incredibly fortuitous. We are showered with the possibilities of endless opportunities. Don’t waste that potential for greatness. Especially when someone else, somewhere else, would never take it for granted.