Why do wars start?  We have heard of beauties abandoning their husbands for another man, to conquering the world by making only one country, then we have also heard of wars that free slaves or people who are oppressed in any way.  Entire nations have lost most of their population to killings for these reasons alone.  Some wars have cost more lives than some plagues or epidemics, so why is it we continue to have them? Why are there wars on earth? We have seen the destruction, we are taught about the atrocities that war brings in school as we study history.  However everyday you hear someone is fighting someone for some reason.  In India, Africa, the Middle East, Russia even in our own country you hear of gang wars, none of this is something to be proud of, we are still losing innocent people every day to violence, poverty and hunger.  War is not just guns and ammo it is deciding which foods to promote for surviving because there is even a war on obesity.  Again why must there be war? If there was one war, one war only we should focus on it and that is the war to bring kindness to all those around us.  It is not based on hatred at all.  Hatred of a person for what, because they were born in one city and you were born in another, or could it be because their DNA is only slightly different.  We all have bad genes even the Kennedy’s had siblings with disabilities.  A simple genetic trait, morphing of a DNA strand.  No one is immune of mutant DNA that causes disease or the freckle on your skin.  It is the precise reason we have war on our eating habits because our DNA is not perfect.  Of course there are some tests to see if you will have cancer or not but most of the time it is unknown, masked, attached to what you thought were fine genetic traits and they turn out not to be.  So when you hear of a nation like ours who went to war not once but twice over the color of ones skin, it really shows how unaccepting of differences between people and the way people are born.

Again why is there war? They say most of it is based on three things fear, power and money or all of the above.  I can understand completely the emotion of fear, we have all been afraid at one time or another and in most instances that is the result of lack of knowledge or experience or both.  Most fear is lessened through experience and education.  Although the power and money part I don’t understand.  I don’t understand how some find it easy to denounce someone for the want of money or to feel like they are better than someone else.  Most people say it is because we have never known what it means to have money and power.  The majority of people are not in the 1% as they say we do not have that status.  Which is why it is a bad example as my intent is not divide socioeconomic classes, for I have heard stories of people killing others for one dollar bill or of people stepping over bodies of others to get to the top of the ladder no matter what level they begin.  Though I always ask myself was it worth it, when listening to these stories?  Was it worth being deceitful, greedy and selfish all for what to be a leader?  Have you noticed the people revered for their leadership skills were well rounded individuals.  People like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Roosevelt, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama to name a few.  To gain the legendary status as excellent leaders they worked through killing oppression by being selective and specific in their dealings of others who wanted nothing more than to destroy.  Even when they achieved their goals they didn’t set out to conquer a nation or a group of people to be exactly like them they fought to be themselves and to let others be who they are.  They fought simply for the reason that the world is our neighborhood and rather than destroy others we help others, imagine a war where we all get to live knowing all we interact with are our friends.

-Jennie Nawrocki