What Made Me Cry Today

!! WHAT MADE ME CRY TODAY !!

I have always been a very empathetic, emotional and sensitive guy and when I was young society taught me that it is wonderful to express your emotions through laughter but a weakness to express them through crying. At some point in my life, I do not remember the exact moment, I said fu...screw that. I am guessing that moment was around the same time that I let go of worrying about what people think of me. If you do not accept and like me for who I am the problem is yours, not mine. And if you have a problem with a guy who revels in all his emotions and often expresses many of these emotions including those of joy and empathy with not only laughter but tears then, well, me and this page may not be for you. If you are human, no matter how strong you are, unless you are a psychopath you will be overcome by your emotions and cry on occasion. I not only think this is a good thing, I think it should be celebrated. Crying is simply an expression of your emotions and feelings, pain, sadness, even joy and you should never be ashamed or embarrassed when you cry. Are you ashamed or embarrassed when you laugh? My point of view is simple, if you saw someone suppressing a laugh after hearing or seeing something really funny, you would probably ask if they were OK, and if their response was, 'sure, that was funny but I do not want anyone to think I am weak by laughing and I do not want anyone to laugh at me or make fun of me for laughing', you would probably think they needed a mental health evaluation. So why does our society think tears express some kind of weakness and why do some people go as far as to laugh or make fun of those that release their emotions through crying? I think it is because our society is weak and those people that laugh at those that cry are even weaker. Anyone can do what society expects of them out of fear, the fear of being derided and laughed at or the fear of being perceived as weak while I believe the strongest person is the person that does the exact opposite because being yourself and not worrying about what others think is an act of rebellion and the ultimate act of strength. On March 3, 1993 a basketball coach named Jim Valvano spoke on ESPN at the first ESPY Awards. I was very inspired by his speech at the time, still am, have never forgot it and am not sure I would have this point of view nor have started this page if it was not for this beautiful and emotional speech coming from the mind and mouth of a man dying of cancer. I have posted an excerpt from the speech below and as far as I am concerned, if you are looking for words to live your life by, these are as good as any. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.