That line is from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and it's wrong.
If you read the book by John Green with the same title as my post today, you'll understand that the quote above is incorrect. The fault is not in ourselves, people are just unlucky.
Ok, yes sometimes the fault can be in ourselves because we do bad things and get in trouble for them. However, for the sake of this post and my point, the fault is not in ourselves. :)
Bad things happen to good people every single day and we don't know why. The author tries to paint a picture where we can see that two kids with cancer can fall in love and live a meaningful life even if you got the crappy end of the stick. He shows what it's like to see the real side of things (things being living with cancer as a teenager) and to understand that maybe you don't know why bad things happen, but you just have to live with it and to find the meaning in the small things and then cherish what time you do have left.
One of my favorite lines in the book is, "that's the thing about pain, it demands to be felt".
Ain't that the truth.
It won't go away, it won't quit, it won't give up, and it won't stop.
Pain demands your attention.
It takes everything you have and it won't give it back unless you admit to yourself that it won.
It's a depressing book, really. However, it has a lot of truth to it.
It opens your eyes to the not so bright side of things and while it may be fiction, it's based on a real girl and her story.
Things like this happen every single day, that's why there are books like this one, foundations to help bring to light issues that not everyone knows about, and then probably the best thing in the world: Dance Marathon.
Dance Marathon is one of the best things that I've experienced. Just like the Fault in Our Stars, it's raw, it's emotional, and it'll rip your heart out and put it back together a totally different way than when you started.
For those of you who don't know what this is, it's an event put on by students where dancers have to stand for 26.2 hours for the children's miracle network and the children who can't stand. All of the money they raise goes straight to Children's miracle network for the kids.
My brother has participated in this for 3 years now.
I love it.
I don't have many regrets, but one of them is that I didn't get involved in it when I was an undergrad.
At UWF they had a small one and it was mainly Greek life that did it (and those who know me know that I'm not fit for Greek life at all. Like no way. No offense to my Greek life friends reading this).
The families of the miracle children come and tell their stories and each time they leave the stage you are reaching for more tissue to blow your nose on.
To hear just how far these kids have come and to hear all of the bad things that have happened to them, but you look at their faces and see nothing but smiles. The to see how much dedication and hard work that was put into DM that has paid off is just truly amazing.
They see the bad, but they are focusing on the good.
When they lifted the numbers last year to show that they had reached over a million dollars I had chills from head to toe.
This year when they showed this:
Can you imagine what it felt like to be in that arena?
All of these students stand for those who can't.
They stand FTK. For the kids.
So while everyone may be unlucky and not know why bad things happen to good people or why they happen in general, we do know that there are people out there who are helping. They are bringing to light the good in the bad situation, they are helping by raising money for new research and equipment, and they are helping others live a meaningful life in every way that they can.
I'm constantly reminding myself of that this week as bad things are happening to the best man in the entire world, my papa. You have to find the good in the bad situations, you have to have hope that things will get better, and you have to rely on your friends to help you through those situations. But most importantly, you must appreciate what you do have and live without blaming something or someone for the bad things that happen.
There is fault in our stars, it's just not always in ourselves.
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