Writing in a diary Is a really strange experience for someone like me.
Not only because I’ve never written anything before,
But also because It seems to me that later on
Neither I nor anyone else
Will be interested in the musings
Of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl.
Anne Frank
1941

Never lose sight of the fact of how much each of our lives impacts one another.

How our private struggles and injustices, if we allow them, can and should be used for the betterment of humanity.

Imagine, if Anne Frank’s struggle stayed behind her bookcase; and was never revealed to the world. 

Imagine if Anne’s father, Otto, never published his daughter’s secret diary; how different the world would be.

It is incredible to come to understand, a seemingly ordinary teenage girl, by sharing her struggle, changed the world.

We all can do the same.

In our own way.

It is human instinct to put one’s best foot forward, to put up and hide behind one’s bookcase.

To face one’s struggles privately.

But to do so limits the benefit of the struggle and stifles the growth of the rest of the human race.

To reveal the struggle behind one’s bookcase takes an extraordinary amount of courage.

The world needs to see the struggle.

I believe by allowing others to see the struggle will genuinely benefit the world.

We also need to look behind bookcases in our worlds.

Everyone is struggling with something no one knows about.

Recognize when a bookcase is hiding a struggle or injustice in someone’s life.

Then find the secret entrance and get to them.

Remember, one never knows if the struggle is for their journey or someone else’s.

We can all be a Miep Gies (the lady who risked her safety to help the Frank family) to someone in our lives.

Otto Frank once said, “I hope Anne’s book will have an effect on the rest of your life so that insofar as it is possible in your own circumstances, you will work for unity and peace.”

78 years later and Anne Frank’s book is one of the most-read books in the world.

In Anne Frank’s courage to share her struggle, 

the world benefited by being exposed to the most valuable asset in the universe, the invincibility of the human spirit.

A seemingly common thirteen-year-old-schoolgirl did her part to change the world.

Now, let us each do ours.

Live brave.

Share your struggle.

One never knows whether the struggle is for their journey, or for someone else’s.

Magically, it may be for both.

All work by JohnA Passaro