One of the hopes that most people have these days, especially with the results of our recent election (that the vast majority of us recognize as valid), is that our country will now experience more love and hope and compassion in our future than we've experienced during the last four years. Our last four years have been truly devoid of national leaders who put compassion and caring anywhere in their agenda, and many people in our country now feel completely disenfranchised, and threatened every single day. They're threatened because of their race, their gender, their sexuality, their lifestyle preferences--you name it. The outgoing administration has done everything within its power to marginalize anyone who doesn't agree with them, anyone who disapproves of them, anyone who's slightly different than they are. And while I'm very glad that this extremely negative and damaging administration is about to leave, I'm hoping that we all realize that while a change of leaders may make some difference in the way things are, the biggest changes are going to have to come from us in our own individual lives if they're to be lasting changes that affect as many people as possible in positive ways.
Of course, it will be wonderful to have a leader who models compassion and unity rather than anger and hatred and divisiveness. For the last four years I've been waiting in vain to see some sort of compassion come from the White House, but my wait has been in vain. There's been a lot of action, but the vast majority of the acts have benefited only those people close to the administration, and those people wealthy enough to benefit.
The decline in the quality of life in the United States has accelerated significantly over the last four years, and it doesn't show too many signs of getting better (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2020-09-11/a-global-anomaly-the-us-declines-in-annual-quality-of-life-report). When we keep people down, when we don't allow them to have hope of better times ahead, it becomes very difficult for those people to actually spread positive energy in the world, and it seems that fewer people are willing to share their love and kindness with the downtrodden these days. We're more isolated from each other--and COVID certainly hasn't helped--and much less willing to knock on a neighbor's door to offer our encouragement or assistance.
But if love and compassion are to gain a foothold again, it's up to each of us individually to share what we have with others, without condition. And I'm not talking about material things, though those can be helpful, too. Rather, I'm talking about the encouraging word to someone who's having troubles. I'm talking about a smile and a kind word in response to someone else's rudeness. I'm talking about a compliment for something done well, or something done better than it's normally done ("That's a good improvement" can be much more helpful than "That's still not right").
But it's also important that we keep our eyes open for the bad things that are happening, to be aware of the difficulties that others are facing. We still live in a world that is divided and that is facing an incredible amount of anger and antipathy between sibling and sibling, parent and child, friend and friend. There are many people who are trying to change laws and policies so that they may gain materially. There are still many people who look down on other because of race, religion, social status, or any number of similar reasons. We must keep our eyes and our hearts open so that we can recognize the negative things and people in the world so that we can counter what they're doing with a little bit of love of our own.
The world, of course, will go on just fine without us. It will go on fine no matter what we do, no matter how we treat others. But we know that the world is in need of positive people, of positive energy, of energy that is focused on unity and togetherness rather than division. And we can contribute to that unity, to that positive energy, with very little effort on our parts. My original question was simply, "Is there more love on the way?" Many people feel that now that we've elected a certain leader, there will be more love and compassion in our country, and I have to say that I don't disagree with that conclusion.
That said, though, I also know that the only way that we can guarantee that there's more love on the way in this world of ours is for each of us to dedicate ourselves to contributing to this world of ours. The only way that I can know for sure if there's more love in this world this evening than there was yesterday is to put some love out there, no matter how little. It's a challenge to do so, but at the very least, it's something positive in this world full of negativity. So my goal is to be someone who contributes love to this world and to the people in my own little world, for that's the only way that I can be sure that the amount of love has grown recently, and that there's now more positive energy in the world than there was yesterday.
And if you were to do the same, then we'd both know that at the very least, two of us have contributed to the love of the world. And there aren't too many goals to strive for that are more worthwhile than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment