I started writing for The DM my first year of law school because a friend asked me to fill in for her column, and it has been a great experience.
For one, writing has been a creative outlet — a refreshing break from writing legal memos and briefs. It also has fine-tuned my writing. Narrowing somewhat complex issues into a 400 word or less opinion is challenging, especially in contrast to the verbose, all-inclusive legal-style of writing.
I admit that most of my articles have not stirred the pot as some of the other DM columns have. I have not addressed the Greek community or, heaven forbid, the right to wear leggings as pants.
Quite frankly, I felt there were more important issues worth my time.
When I touched on social issues or issues in local or national news, I tried to my best to find a common ground among the different opinions on which to stand.
My reasons behind that decision were multifaceted.
For starters, putting something in print has lasting effects. I tried not to put anything in print that could later haunt me. In that same vein, I tried to keep my opinions as centered as possible, lest I change my mind later and regret it.
Opinions are funny things to me.
People tend to dig their heels in deep and cast issues as black or white. I see opinions as an ever changing, revolving door that reveals different shades of grey. (No, I’m not referring to that book you once caught your mom reading.)
Revolving doors are always open and in motion. As you go through life, you meet different people, have difference experiences and, as a result, have different opinions. Your views on one subject or another are bound to evolve depending on your stage in life, your stage of rotation in the door. There is not an explicit black or white, right or wrong, shut or open door.
Granted people may be on the same rotating door as you, they likely inhabit different sections. Their experiences have added more or less black or white pigmentation to their shade of grey, and, like you, are bound to change their pigmentation as they continue through the rotation.
There are some things, however, that we all know for certain. After all, rotation requires a stable center axis.
Those things, the certain truths, were what I strived to write.
Family is paramount, regardless of whether or not it is the family you were born with or the one you obtained along the way.
Kindness and respect is owed to everyone, even if it is difficult to do at the time. Put others before yourself, truly listen before speaking, and be honest even if it costs you are all things we should aspire to do on a daily basis. In essence, the things we learned before we even began our educational journey through Aesop’s Fables, the Book of Virtues and Dr. Seuss are what still holds the most true today.
In my last published opinion, I ask that you hold on to those truths as you make your rounds through life. Try to be understanding of others.
Thanks for reading,
Anna
Anna Rush is a third-year law student from Hattiesburg. Follow her on Twitter at @akrush.
