Giving Thanks Day 7 ~ Freedom of Speech

♥ Today I am thankful, and truly grateful, for the right to have freedom of speech. I am thankful that I was raised in a manner where you could share how you felt and what you thought even if it wasn't the most popular or what people would want to hear. Not everyone is going to like what you say 100% of the time, but I am thankful that in our country we all can say what is on our minds (even here on Facebook). It would be great if we lived in a world that was respectful of our speech and not judgmental, but I am thankful for the right for all of us to say what we feel. I may not always agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Each voice deserves the right to be heard, that we can express what we feel, as we feel it without fear or reservation. And when it really comes down to it, it's not so much having the right to say what is on our minds it as it is to be heard. To have someone "hear" what we have to say. I am thankful that I was raised to fight for what I believe in, to stand up for what is right, and to not be afraid to go against the grain. I am thankful I was raised to challenge what I was taught, to question what is presented, and to be compassionate with others as I discover and grow. What you have to say is important and vital, and is real. I was raised with the strength and courage to make difficult choices when an easy option was presented, to speak up in times when no one else will. To talk about the good, the bad, the joys, the sorrows, to not be ashamed to speak up, and that even when things are "unsaid" they are heard.....I am thankful I can speak about them all. I was raised that we all make mistakes and hopefully we learn from them an grow. I was raised to help others in times of need. I was raised to have an open mind and be objective, and to search for answers, and to try to make things work. These are things I hope to instill in my children...♥ Audre Lorde sums this up beautifully “I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever. Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end. And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”