School massacres in America have occurred way too frequently in the 21st century. Aaron Stark was about twelve years old when his life began to devolve. Suffering from constant bullying at school and an abusive life at home, he was homeless and living on the streets. In the TED Talk, he recalled how many times he was told he was worthless and useless. With the constant bombardment of these phrases, he began to believe that they must be true. With so much anger built up inside of him, he felt as if there was only one way to express his frustrations: a massacre. In the days where he was waiting for his firearm, the acts of kindness showed to him by his friend who had taken him in stopped him from committing an atrocity and helped Aaron turn his life around. What sticks out the most from this story is that the acts of kindness Aaron referred to were not “major” acts of kindness. They were things as simple as asking him if he wanted to grab some food or simply sitting next to him on the couch to watch some TV. We really never know what someone might be going through and small gestures can go a very long way. I imagine there are hundreds of other people who have felt at the end of their rope such as Aaron did, yet some small gesture showed them that there was much more to life than creating chaos. All of this is just something to remember. It’s easy to lash out and disregard someone’s uncharacteristic behavior as just being weird, but a little act of friendship and humanization can go a long way.
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