On Saturday night, I watched the movie Taken, with Liam Neeson. I didn’t mean to watch it. After work, I got back to my cousin’s apartment, where I’ve been staying, and she was watching it. And I was immediately drawn in to this story that paints a very real picture of the world of sex trafficking.

In the film, Liam’s 19-year-old daughter goes on a trip to Paris and within an hour of getting there, she and her best friend are captured by sex traffickers. 

The reality of how many women - of all ages, and many of them Americans - are getting captured into sex trafficking really hit home. That deep-in-the-stomach-sickly-feeling home.

There’s always something to care about, or a cause to fight for. And a lot of it, even though I know it is bad or important, doesn’t really push me into action. It doesn’t stir me with anger. I guess I, like many of us, am just a bit desensitized to all the horrible things that are going on in the world.

But not just that. I am also too busy getting caught up in scrutinizing my own actions or thoughts - searching for wrongdoing and beating myself up over it.

Sounds FUN, right?!

While I was watching Liam Neeson go from place to place, searching for his daughter, finding young women drugged up or beaten and raped and dead, and then fighting against guy after guy that came after him, it also sunk it that there are people out there doing really, really, really bad, inhumane, sick things out there.

Helloooo! Duhhhh! I know. But it also hit me that — we are the good guys. I am so, so hard on myself way too much of the time. I think I should be doing more, achieving more, all of that. I say one wrong thing and I can mull in guilt for hours. I sometimes lose sleep worrying over if the way I said something made someone mad at me, and is life as I know it now over.

What a waste of time! Just the reality of how many people out there are fighting hard for evil and doing the most cruel, inhumane things, made it seem so silly that I actually spend time beating myself up internally over fears and worries.

I am fighting the good fight over here. Trying to make myself into a better person, down to the core, and looking at my own inner demons right in the eye. And on top of that, trying to become an autonomous part of society that contributes in my own unique ways.

We’re the good guys. We can be nicer to ourselves and let ourselves off the hook. And when I start to take all that energy off of seeing myself in a negative light, I actually have the energy to care about the world around me, to get inspired to find some way I can actually help fight the good fight.