A person’s house is often called their home, but every so often that is not the case. I believe a person’s home is where they feel the most comfortable, the safest and the most secure. A phrase that is often used that demonstrates this would be “home is where the heart is”. Houses are symbols of security and in some cases independence.  But home, whether it’s a home town, or just a comfortable place where one feels happy and safe is special, it is where you feel like you belong. A home isn’t a place to sleep or hoard possessions, it is anywhere one may decide, but everyone has a home, whether it’s messy and easy like my friend Katy’s or vibrant and full of people like my boyfriend’s.

 My best friend Katy’s home always has a sense of comfort and ease. Her couch is constantly scattered with the hair of her many loud, barking dogs.  Her house also seems to carry a continuous scent, its sweet and warm with a faint hint of cinnamon, apple febreeze. Her home is warm and inviting, and always a little messy with random books, and pillows scattered all around, which only seems to add to its’ coziness. The inside is painted white with a few scenic paintings hung up against the wall, lights and décor. Her little sister is often found sleeping on her couch, bundled into a tiny cocoon, and her older brother inside his oddly silent and secretive room.  Although what really shows me that this is her home and not just her house is her ease and comfort when she is there.

My boyfriend Carlos’s home is a light tan color, like amber, it carries his distinct scent of musk and a sweet scent that follows you almost relentlessly, like faint hints of melted caramel.  His brother whom is continuously there has a loud and funny way of speaking, as if he is frequently drifting away. His mother is like an ocean on a quiet afternoon, so calm, vast and unreadable which often scares me because I cannot read her mind. His father is a large man who smiles whenever I see him. He has a deep voice that reminds me of what I once imagined Santa to sound like. Carlos has a constant ease, that makes one truly believe he, sincerely isn’t bothered by anyone else’s opinion. He smells like his shampoo, head and shoulders, which is sweet and musky, and although I doubt he uses it, the cologne Axe.

My house is almost always void of inhabitants. It is clean downstairs and just like the reality shows on TV, it is a façade. It’s empty. Like a vacant museum. With all of my family’s possessions littering the rooms in an unorganized organization. As if a family lived there, and even though we all still occupy its rooms it is bare of intimacy. By the time the rest of my family reappears, my sister becomes glued to the large, dark, obnoxiously noisy TV and becomes oblivious to the world around her. My mother is eating everything in our congested refrigerator. And my father is fast asleep on our tiny, dust colored grey couch. Our dark assortment of tiles feels cold on my feet. And our brightly painted walls appear dull because I am once again just as alone as before. Sitting on my petite twin bed, with my colorful blanket of the Beatles, studying the jumble of posters hung messily across my room. Moreover despite the rooms suddenly being filled, it is a show, a sham to display a happy family when in truth I couldn’t know less about them.

Sometimes I envy them; their families always seem so happy and close, as if there was an endless and brilliant white picket fence around them. Then I remember nothing is perfect. I know they all have their problems just like me, and I try not to blame anyone for my house being so relentlessly cold and lifeless. My house is only a place where I study and sleep and perform all of my regular boring activities and keep my clutter. My home is at the park with Katy, with its sharp grass and burning sun. Where we make our stupid jokes and talk about our humorous lives, and listen to all the cars driving by. It is on Carlos’s plush, roomy tan couch, where we talk, joke and watch that obnoxious TV, where I can feel his decently well-built arms around me and his soft, smooth lips on my cheek. It is wherever I can hear the laughter of my friends and family, that is my home, and that is where my heart is.

How many of us have thrown away a perfectly edible sandwich because we didn't like the taste? Half a drink perhaps. Now how many of us are constantly bombarded with the thought that we may not eat tonight. That we may not be able to feed our children, our families. No, not in the American middle and upper classes, and although in many third world countries' children go to bed hungry, and others die of starvation, we take our "super sized" meals for granted and buy food with the intention of only eating the "bits we like". We are never satisfied. We buy more and we use only bits and pieces, like Thomas Fuller once said- "Willful waste brings woeful want."

About 15,000,000,000 children die every year from hunger. Roughly 104,921 tons of food was wasted in America just today. World hunger is not an unknown topic throughout the world, as a matter of fact people throw it into daily conversation and it is broadcasted throughout the media regularly. So how come nobody seems to be taking it to heart? How can we continue to waste so much in America knowing that people are dying across the globe due to starvation? How do we sleep peacefully at night? Is it because the American population doesn't care? Or maybe it's because we don't feel like wasting a half-eaten sandwich  is that big of a deal. Maybe it's because we are so complacent and caught up in our own lives that we forget that there are about 6,840,507,003 other people on the planet that matter just as much as we do.

Coming from the Philippines and having family there without even a flush able toilet can open your' eyes to the problems of the world. So can watching the news. But it doesn't matter how much we know about the world's problems if we refuse to take action. Even if that action is as simple as   trying not to waste so much food. I know a girl, and for decency's sake I will not name her, who buys a snack mix from our school snack bar regularly and throws the pretzel and cheese cracker parts on the ground. When I asked her why she did that she blatantly remarked that "they are disgusting and I don't want anyone to eat them." Now perhaps I am being too sensitive, but in my mind I saw a child that I had seen in the Philippines, so small and skinny I could see her bones through her dress. I am fairly convinced that this child and many like her would have eaten those "disgusting" crackers and pretzels right off the floor that she had thrown it upon.  

When I see people throwing away perfectly good food because they "didn't like the taste" I get a sudden impulsive urge to yell at them about how some of my family in the Philippines, cannot even afford a working toilet let alone dinner for most nights. And how while they go home and eat whenever they want, super sizing their meals, and throwing away pretzels, a person dies of starvation. Things like this don't just get better over night. They require time, effort, and people to not only believe in the effort but to contribute to it. Be thankful for what you have. Be proud, and care about those who do not have what you have. No matter your' problems, no matter your' pain, most of you at least know when you will have your' next meal.

Have you ever had someone look at you strangely and known exactly why? Have you ever done the same to someone else? Maybe someone who looked differently, dressed differently, spoke differently? The answer is yes, we all have, for some unexplainable reason, as a whole, we feel the need to carry on with the two year old mentality that everything and everyone needs a label. For some of us it's just the way we are, the way our minds work, and for others, that's just the way it is. There is no reason, well at least no logical reason. Must we continue to follow our two year old mentality where everything needs a label like crayons in a crayon box? We are human beings. Not the special purple crayon, not the blue crayon, not the virtually useless white crayon, we are people.

Does it really matter if someone dresses a certain way, or looks a certain way? In today's pop culture one may find shows such as "what not to wear". A show that tells young women what is "in style", during this show the two hosts proceed to mock the individual's clothing choice and throw much of it away, giving them an "approved" wardrobe. I do not believe in ever forcibly shaping another individual into what society and the media wishes for us to be. More importantly I do not believe in labels. Now I know a lot of people are going to think, it's just a show, it's not that big of a deal, but it is. These kinds of shows tell it's viewers how to dress and that people wont accept you unless you look fashionably "acceptable".

Throughout the Earth's history there has always been a group, or minority which was the "trend" to pick on. The most obvious of these would be racism, in particular against the African American community, and the persecution of the Jews during WW2. However, there have also been many other forms of discrimination throughout history, which although perhaps not as extreme, equally wrong. Such discrimination has been pitched against homosexuals, causing many young homosexual teens to kill themselves, in the belief that something is wrong with them or that they will never be loved. Such an example could be made of my own cousin Jinky, a senior in high school, and an honor student, once out of the closet so to speak she was bullied by both her family and her peers at school for being a lesbian until one day she decided to hang herself from a banister in her dark, damp garage. She left us with nothing more than a pathetic, quickly written "I'm sorry". At the funeral some of her "friends" came to offer their condolences, but a sorry was not going to bring my beautiful 18 year old cousin back.

Among these wrongly victimized groups include religious groups, more recently, the Muslim community, many uneducated people across the nation and planet have now begun to believe that Muslim is a violent and hateful religion. This is not only implied in today's media but also taught in places such as my church, Lancaster Baptist. The members of this community are so stubborn and ardent in their beliefs that they do not stop to re asses the argument by doing actual research on the opponent's argument. Because had they done actual research they would have known that Muslim as a religion is not a violent religion but that extremism for any cause and any religion, is violent, cruel and improperly justified through that religion's true beliefs. Many people, many once again from my church, also believe that if one dresses in dark colors, that they are depressed, worshiping the devil, or are "misled" by the world.

What compels us to judge our fellow human beings, is it a lack of morals, a desire to feel better than others? A need to fit in to feel stability? Whatever the reason, we as a whole have done a fantastic job of making colossal fools of ourselves because of our tendencies towards blatant discrimination. Whether it be against differently colored people, homosexuals, different religious groups, different fashion styles, or even against people of a different body type, we discriminate, tease, judge, and label. These labels should not be what rule our society. These mocking words should not be aloud to enter our minds as a truth. I lost a cousin because a big enough group of people, close to her, believed it was alright to tease someone about their differences, and because uneducated, closed minded people believed that she was strange and disgusting. "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."Matthew 7:12. A true christian lives by these words and any truly intelligent and rational beings already know this.