The world will give you plenty of reasons to harden against it. You will never run out of evidence that points you in the direction of suffering and bitterness and anger. This world will not teach you how to love. This world will offer up little to no proof that you should believe in the goodness of it. This world will not open its heart to you and give you acceptance. You will always fight against injustice and you will never not be surrounded by suffering. This world can shatter your heart into a thousand pieces and it won’t always help you put it back together. This world will never adamantly and enduringly convince you that there is truth, love, joy, light.
What will you do?
Will you allow this world to harden you and then break you? It’s easy enough to allow. Let the anger and suffering wash over you and let it consume you. Start drinking to counteract it. Find someone to fuck. Look at your phone. Send a text. Scroll Instagram. Refresh Twitter. Next on Netflix. Go to a drive-thru. Medicate yourself. Spend your energy fighting against the feeling you’re allowing yourself to accept. Stave off another broken day by pretending you’re not cracking.
Or.
You can…
1. Practice compassion instead of ambivalence.
2. Build empathy instead of walls.
3. Practice self-awareness instead of distraction.
4. Stand up for something instead of claiming neutrality.
5. Do something that is not about you instead of chasing a personal pay-off.
6. Find a purpose instead of only doing exerting effort for financial reward.
7. Educate yourself instead of speaking without authority or knowledge.
8. Use your voice for impact instead of for gossip.
9. Be an example to the world instead of hiding who you truly are.
10. Make time for all types of love instead of looking for The One.
11. See all sides of an issue instead of demanding to be right.
12. Care about a cause that does not directly affect you instead of caring about only your own interests.
13. Put in effort instead of looking for the easy way out.
14. Face your demons, fears, emotions instead of denying them.
15. Be kind and understanding and radically accepting of yourself and of others instead of demanding others change.
16. Simplify everything instead of trying to find ways to cope with a complicated life.
17. Speak your truth instead of spending time hiding who you are.
18. Love instead of fearing, hating, judging. Always.
19. Subtract evidence of the cruelty and suffering of this world instead of adding to it.
20. Give a stranger a reason to believe in the light instead of a reason to believe in the darkness.
21. Be the change the world desperately needs.
22. Be the empathy you do not see from others.
23. Be the understanding you know is needed.
24. Be the love you do not see.
25. It seems like it would be too simple, too small to make a difference. But, it builds. It expands.
