Monday, May 21, 2012

This I Believe

I recently found something I wrote my freshman year of high school.  I really enjoyed reading it again, so much so that I thought I'd share it with you:


This I Believe
     I believe in conservation.  I believe all animals and plants have an important place in this world and are here for a purpose.  I believe mankind has been given the task to protect this extraordinary world and wildlife within it.  And I believe we are failing, horribly failing.
     My love for animals has been present as far back as I can remember.  My mother says that one of the very first books I picked up was a book called "Baby Animals" and even though I could not read it, I immediately loved the book.  I was one year old.  By the time I'd finished kindergarten I was already doing a little reading from various animal books that I found, and in 1st grade I even wrote a story about animals in a circus.
     Third grade was a big year for me.  I read books like The Call of the Wild and White Fang.  My heart went out to the animals in those books; I wanted to jump  in the book and bring justice!  I wanted the people who hurt these animals so badly to pay fro what they had done.  I wanted to explain how much respect those animals deserved.  I wanted to learn, to learn more and more and more.  I begged my mom to buy me every animals encyclopedia and book I saw.  I began tracing pictures of animals; reading about their habitats, prey, predators, lifestyles, and everything else I could possibly find out; I sat for hours and hours and just read and learned.  I make a binder specifically for my "animal research" as I called it.
     That love I had as a young child has never left me; it has only gotten stronger and stronger throughout the years.  Today the wildlife on this planet is in serious trouble.  Even though there are many people who care, many efforts to help, I know that a lot more needs to be done of the environment is to thrive like it should.
    I believe that I can be a leading factor in the recover of wildlife.  My plan for my life involves learning even more about this world and everything living in it.  It involves giving wildlife a chance and educating as many people as possible on its importance.  I believe the animals and plants were put on this earth by God, not for us to use and abuse, but for us to take care of and live peacefully with them in this magnificent place.  This world is an extraordinary gift that we have been given, and I plan to do all I can to restore its beauty, its magic, its wonder.  Everything that captivated me as a young child, I want it all to be there, for generations and generations to come, so that one day my children's children can point to a bird flying high in the sky or a deer running through an open field and say with amazement, "look at that," and I can look back on my life and remember all I did to keep this here, for them.

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