what can we personally do to make the world a better place

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"I can't believe the news today. I tin't shut my eyes and make information technology go away" —U2, Dominicus Bloody Sunday.

Virtually of us have been horrified, sickened, and enraged past the senseless killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis law officers. Protests over Floyd's decease have broken out across the U.s.a. and even in other parts of the world. Most of these have been peaceful, but initially some became violent.

The outrage over Floyd'south death is understandable. There accept been so many senseless killings of African-Americans that information technology is but difficult to take information technology anymore. Peradventure nosotros try to forget some of these names considering it is too painful to remember — Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and Ahmaud Arbery, just to name a few.

Simply when we accept a step back, there is an untold number of people beyond the globe and over the centuries who take experienced oppression, discrimination, racism, suffering, and death. It truly boggles the mind. There'due south no dubiousness about information technology, nosotros humans tin can be pretty brutal toward our other fellow humans.

And so, of course, we have this Covid-19 pandemic that has killed over 113,000 Americans and about 410,000 people effectually the globe. The economic system has been rocked, and the politics in the U.S. seems to have reached toxic levels of partisanship and polarization. It might seem like we are heading for the Apocalypse.

What Can We Practise?

While things seem pretty horrible, at that place are reasons that we shouldn't despair. For i, despite how bad things are, the world was generally much worse historically, every bit Steven Pinker details in his book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Scientific discipline, Humanism, and Progress. Think of the horrors of the Black Death, the Holocaust, slavery, and the many wars that marked European history over the ages. Although the U.South. seems pretty cluttered in 2020, it does not compare to the level experienced past almost of the globe in by centuries or even as recently as 1968 (all the same).

We don't want to deny that things are pretty bad right at present, we simply need to step dorsum a little further to provide a greater context for the horrors and injustices that nosotros see. These seemingly contradictory realities tin co-exist. There is a lot of suffering and injustice in this world, things are pretty bad now, and things have been worse.

Still, we run across all the horrible things going on in the world, and nosotros might think, with almost eight billion people in the globe, what can I do? Therein lies the answer. It starts with each of us.

Mahatma Gandhi may non have actually said these verbal words, simply he did express the sentiment, "Be the alter you lot wish to see in the world." Ultimately, nosotros tin only control our own state of consciousness and our ain behavior. Changing the world begins with changing ourselves.

Thus, if nosotros want to see more than peace in the world, then we demand to be more peaceful in the earth. If we want to see more dearest and compassion in the globe, then we need to be more loving and compassionate. When nosotros see the hatred, vitriol, and tribalism that infects our politics, then we need to refrain from being hateful. The practiced news is that each day, indeed each moment, is ours to take. No thing how bad things become, no matter what we've done or oasis't done in the past, we always take the opportunity to do amend.

Hate Is Not the Mode

As we see injustice, anger, hatred, and cruelty in the world, we tend to react with anger and hatred ourselves. It'south piece of cake to exercise so. The rage wells up within the states and threatens to overwhelm u.s.a.. Some people among the protesters take committed acts of violence such as burning cars, looting, and fifty-fifty shooting police officers and other innocent people. But when we spew hatred and commit acts of violence, then nosotros become role of the problem and not the solution.

In some other fleck of wisdom often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, "An middle for an heart leaves the whole world bullheaded." To put in more common parlance, two wrongs don't make a right. Nosotros cannot resort to acts of violence as a protest against violence and brutality. Fifty-fifty George Floyd's son, Quincy Mason Floyd, encouraged protesters to restrain their hostilities noting that violent protests won't solve anything.

There is a saying attributed to many wisdom teachers that is something to the consequence of, "Hatred is the poison nosotros drink hoping the other person will die." Property anger and hatred in our hearts is literally harmful to us physically whereas treating ourselves and others with compassion has health benefits. Moreover, treating others with anger, hatred, and violence will elicit those feelings and behaviors in them. Thus, inadvertently, we feed into the very wheel of hatred and violence that we are condemning.

Not succumbing to feelings of anger and hatred does not mean we should disengage or despair. Rather, we strive for mindful, energized, and skillful actions that brand a difference. That might mean peaceful protests. It might mean we vote for candidates in upcoming elections who can unite people from unlike backgrounds rather than carve up them. It might mean becoming more involved in social justice organizations.

However, information technology is bigger than this. It is treating our neighbors, co-workers, and strangers with respect, compassion, and kindness. Nosotros have opportunities to do this every day. Importantly, we can still disagree with i another and still care for others every bit we wish to be treated past them.

While information technology might sound like also much saccharine idealism, there is truth to the words of Martin Luther King Jr. that, "Beloved is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend." Nosotros don't look for that dear in others or from others. That transformation starts with each 1 of u.s.a.. The way to modify the world is to first by changing the world in us.

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Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/tech-happy-life/202006/what-can-we-do-make-the-world-better-place

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