What's Worth Caring About?

When I think of what matters to me, a few different things come to mind. I think of family, friends, world hunger, you know the usual things. What really stuck out, however, was my drum group, Sheltered Reality. Sheltered Reality is an all of above answer when thinking about how it plays a role in my life. It holds friends, it holds my brother as well as long car rides with my family, and overall it holds one of the many keys to changing the world forever. One of the topics that come to my mind while reading my assignment is the teenage suicide rate and how I, with the help of Sheltered Reality, can help out.

Before I go into how Sheltered Reality can save lives, I think I should give a little background knowlege of SR. First of all, Sheltered Reality started 15 years ago and has grown more and more successful over the years. It grew from one state and a handful of drummers to 12 states and about 300 drummers. The drummers play to popular songs like "Micky" or "We Got the Beat" and add another demention to them. All of the drummers have a similar goal when performing in front of audiences. That goal is to change the world for the better one person at a time. SR has Steps of Success that help us reach the bar that we have set. The steps are to:

1. Take a Chance



2. Never Give Up



3. Do Whatever it Takes



4. Believe in Yourself



5. Be a Friend



6. Do Good

To take a chance means to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. You never know if you are going to like it and what this new thing can do for you. I took a chance when I joined SR because I was not a people person whatsoever. But I did join and I realized it was one of the most fun things that I could ever do and I could do a good thing while having fun. To never give up means to keep at something until you get it right. A lot of the beats that we have to learn as an SR member are rather difficult and take time to learn. But after not giving up I was able to get a handle on the beats and teach others to succeed with me. When you do whatever it takes it means that you have to have a lot of persistance to succeed. This again goes with never give up so I'm not going to spend too much time on this. The fourth step combines the first three. When you believe in yourself you have the power to take a chance, never give up, and do whatever it takes. To be a friend, in my opinion, is the most imortant step that we have. When you have a large group of people, you won't always get along with everybody. In order to stop teen suicide, I have noticed that you have to at least try to be a friend because most of the time that is all that they need. And with that said I am going to skip "Do Good" and continue with what is important to me. You can actually find out more information on the website: www.sheltered-reality.org.

I know so many people who have had a suicide attempt. Even worse, I knew so many people who succeeded in killing themselves. Over the past three or four years I have heard so many heartstopping stories of teenagers who don't feel it neccisary to stay alive anymore. One example of this was my friend. Her name is not important so I will just refer to her as M. M was not the prettiest girl in the world by far and she knew it. She was so self concious about how she looked that she drove all of her friends away by repeating over and over how ugly she thought she was. When she lost her friends she became very lonely and started getting depresed. She thought about how she was going to go through life by herself and eventually decided that she couldn't do it so she was going to take her own life, thinking that was the easiest option. She was unsuccessful. See before M saw our show she already knew to never give up and she had tried on several occcasions to overdose on Tylonal and Advil. Thank goodness it never worked because a few years ago, M saw us and she heard our message on how to succeed in life. She decided that she would join Sheltered Reality for a second chance at living her life. As she got closer with the members, she opened up and told us what she had tried to do in the past. With M's story, we realized that we could stop suicide and that has been my goal ever since.

Since that day way back when, Sheltered Reality has preformed several hundred shows around the mid-west. And about once a month, we recieve an e-mail from somebody sharing with us a similar story on how all they needed was a friend. Eventually I have started leading shows and sharing stories like M's. I hope that doing what I love can help save even more people from suicide.