The prospect of moving forward can be scary.
The idea of forward thinking can be just as terrifying. It’s easy to think of these concepts as two separate things–two separate paths that lead to two different roads. Most times, however, it’s nearly impossible to have one without the other because you find you can’t function properly with just one wheel or one pedal–but sometimes, that’s all you’re given.
Sometimes you have to stay in the ditch that life puts you in until you figure things out–until you have the tools, discipline and patience to dig yourself out. When you finally have those tools, the result can be golden. According to Upworthy.com, social media has recently been captivated by a young man’s will to find strength and hope in the broken places.
18-year-old Gaspar Marcos is an immigrant of Guatemala. He is one of at least 100,000 kids who were shipped from Central America to the US as a result of a violent drug war between police and cartels. Marcos’ family is one mistake away from living on the streets, so he takes on a full schedule at school and home with three hours in between–just to try to keep himself and his loved ones from living a life of poverty.
The Los Angeles Times got wind of his story, and asked if they could spend some time documenting his life. They ended up spending 19 hours with him, capturing every angle of his daily life. The end result is the 18-minute video shown above–which has been viewed over 10 million times on YouTube.
Marcos had one simple, heartfelt response to all this:
“It feels great to feel visible and loved by all of you.”
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Photo Credit: Ian Espinosa on Unsplash