“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” — Anne Frank
As we read The Diary Of a Young Girl we realize the strength of spirit that human beings are capable of developing, even in the darkest and most desolate moments of our lives. How in the midst of so much hopelessness and with everything against us, we are able to see a clearer tomorrow, a more promising future or as we would commonly say, “the calm after the storm.”
During our lives, how many of us have not experienced pain or fear, and we believe that our problems are so big that there is no solution. And when that feeling of failure and helplessness appears sometimes we sink into all these negative thoughts and feelings; we blind ourselves to everything else that surrounds us, before the opportunities and tools we have to make that difficult moment a valuable life lesson and the reason not to give up just as Anne Frank did not give up. Who despite all the bad things she was experiencing, continued dreaming, continued preparing and learning with the illusion that there was more than just pain, she appreciated the beauty in the midst of the difficult situation.
Anne Frank’s diary is without a doubt for me the book that has made me think the most. It gives us incredible life lessons through the testimony of the unfortunate experiences that a girl went through, who through her passion for writing revealed a cruel reality of intolerance, prejudice and discrimination. It’s incredible to think that all these kinds of things had remained in the past, and we realize that in reality today we still live in societies full of prejudices due to ignorance and lack of tolerance. We do not see beyond ourselves, our thinking, our feeling, and we do not respect the individuality of others; coming to discriminate based on skin color, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status or preferences of any kind and we go against everything that is different from ourselves. A society in which we even take standards of beauty and anyone who does not fit these standards is discriminated against, where celebrating the culture of our roots is often a source of discomfort for others and we are not able to see the beauty in the diversity that the world has.
Who or what has given us the authority or power to judge or discriminate? What makes us think that we are superior to each other? Nowadays it is very easy and common to see discrimination, for example in so many cases of people migrating around the world, how the lack of empathy leads us to the prejudice of everyone who for different reasons leaves looking for a new place to call home. The lack of tolerance in nations attacking each other; or through a screen such as social media, we become critics and judges of another.
Perhaps what we all need is to see the world, as Anne Frank saw it, as beautiful in the midst of chaos and pain in order to be better human and perhaps to eradicate everything that leads us to hate. Understanding that we are not all the same mold, that we are different and coexist in a world rich in culture and diversity, that beyond any difference we are human with rights.
Without a doubt, Anne Frank at such a young age made us see the cruel reality of what those days were like. And it makes us reflect so as not to continue making the same mistakes, in addition to the lesson of strength, faith and hope even in the midst of the most complex and sad situations we may go through.
Get the book Check out The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank at BMCC’s Library, the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, or the Queens Public Library.
About the author This reading reflection is by JK, who writes, “Hello, I am a person who does not really like writing or reading but I like to write when I am free, using my imagination and letting my thoughts flow.”
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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