Our lives were so similar yet so different, we both rode the school bus, we both went to school, and we both had a group of friends. But her government tried to stop her from getting an education whereas mine actively supports it. 

It was a typical day for me, but for a young girl on the other side of the world, it was the most important day of her life. The bus ride to school was calm and very boring, people yelled about Resident Evil 6 (apparently it was pretty bad according to the boy wearing a hoodie sporting the logo) and Dishonored (which according to one boy was the greatest game of all time), but I just looked out a window. We passed a billboard for an orthodontist office which read “EmBRACE the Difference” with two kids smiling. Despite my better judgment, I chuckled at the sign and just looked at my cell phone, flipping through social media posts. Dreading the day I was going to have at school, I just wished I didn’t have to go. That day changed the lives of many, and we didn’t even know it. The young girl would be shot in the head while I walked to class. She was airlifted to a military hospital while I took a math quiz. 

When I saw the news about Malala Yousafazi, I was in shock. How could someone hurt a child for going to school?  Going to school was something I realized now  I had taken for granted. I had wished many times that I didn’t have to go to school. I thought it was boring, dull, and useless on many occasions, always culminating in a defeated sigh as I walked into the cold night to go to my bus stop. My entire life, I had always wanted to get out of school, but there was a girl my same age with so many similarities to me, except she was fighting to be allowed to go to school simply. I never realized that school was something, not everybody experienced and that some people would give anything to go to school. It changed my entire outlook on school, and I now know that I shouldn’t take it for granted because some people have to fight to have the education I do. 

Malala Yousafazi became a personal hero of mine, and when I told people, they were confused. “How can she be your hero? You are so different. You have almost nothing in common,” they would criticize. We were different, yes, but we should be able to embrace that. Whether we are the same or different, she changed my outlook on life so much that I couldn’t help but look up to her and everything she did. Malala Yousafazi changed my life and made me think twice before taking my education – or anything else – for granted again.