Assignment # 11: The Concrete Rose

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.

That is right you poor little unfortunate child. You will never amount to anything. Your future is already set, and it is set to fail. You could never and will never amount to as much as those rich kids will, you don’t know what they know, and you can’t do the things they can. You are from the wrong side of town so how could it be that you dream to attend college, don’t you know that’s not for you. Don’t you know that where you belong is in the streets or the penitentiary? Don’t make me laugh talking the nonsense of changing your life, saying that you can actually succeed. Success shouldn’t even be in your vocabulary you should just stick to what you know and stop trying to go against the path of nature.

This all might be what the “top – notch” big shots might say to the person having to fight for every piece of bread they get to eat. To the people going through the extremes just to get that associates degree. Living on the west side, does that mean all that hatred also applies to me? Guaranteed not, no matter what anybody says your future is not set at the time of conception. Where you live or who your parents are don’t etch your life in stone. They may be the building blocks for which you look back upon and thank but what makes you, you is every action that you make. Whether you choose to go that extra mile or sit back and just take things as they come every outcome of your life depends on you.

I believe this is what Tupac Shakur was saying in his poem the concrete rose. He talks about how the rose that grew from the concrete defied the law of nature, relating it to a person doing something great even though the whole world is set to bring them down and hold them back. This also relates to all the things in his life that he sings about. He was thought to be a failure and to end up without anything to be proud of but he took his opportunities wisely and went into one of the hardest professions to get into and he not only did his job well but he was so good at it that people are still singing his songs years after he died. He had the ability to see through all the hatred and misleading accusations and teach people with his music. He turned around every negative thing in his way and made it into a determination to prove that what society believes today about success and wealth only has to be true if you choose to make it true.

If I was to go around every day and believe what other people had to say then I don’t believe I would have even made it this far. People can’t let anybody tell them how their future is going to end up. The future of one individual relies only on that specific individual. Though, people are so egger to keep you down because nobody wants to be a failure by themselves. Also society has no hope in our youth, which is kind of ironic because, though, our youth only makes up twenty six percent of our population, they are one hundred percent our future. Basically, then, if we can’t have any hope for the youth then we don’t have any hope for our future. Which brings me back to what I stated earlier, nothing in life depends on where you come from or who you come from, but rather how you take all of those things and set it to be how you become whether they be negative or positive. Nothing in life is impossible unless you make it impossible. You are what you believe, and if you believe in the worse then that is the only outcome you will mostly see in life. Though, if your beliefs are only those of good like Tupac Shakur’s then you can have anything you want no matter what it is. The feeling to show off what you have even though so many people have doubted you is a feeling like no one can imagine. I’m not saying to through it back at everybody rudely, but to show that you weren’t that screw up and you got through so much that person probably has never even came close to, is like heaven with all your dreams come true.

So if Tupac Shakur can make it to the top, whatever that might mean, when society held him down means that no body, not a single person can use the excuse of not being good enough, because the things worth having are the things that we have to work extremely hard for. Nothing in life is free until you have reached your highest potential, and there can’t be a set potential because success, learning, and achieving things will never end, those things will never have a limit in life.