In recent years, there have been too many soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers had names and faces. These soldiers had families, parents, siblings, wives and children who were left behind. War hurts everyone. It kills innocent people who have earned the right to live just as we have earned the right to live.
At home we put laws in place to crack down on violence, homicides and domestic squabbles on local soil. Then we send our men to fight wars in foreign countries, risking their lives to suppress terrorists and martyrs in other parts of the world.
Many of us look at our own lives and our own skills. We hold back all of the things that we could contribute to the benefit of humankind because we think that our efforts won’t matter or won’t make a difference. We think that the wars don’t include us. We let someone else take the stance against enemies and fight for our freedom. We think that there is nothing that we can do to prevent war. We think that no individual has the power to stand up in the face of adversity and strive for a more peaceful existence.
The truth is that it takes just one person to start the process of change. That one person can trigger love and kindness in so many others, just like one person can trigger hate, hopelessness and despair. Every reaction that you take can either reinforce the aggressive nature of others, or it can teach those around you and your enemies that peace and love are the way in which we must live our lives. Each one of us has a choice and our choices influence many others in ways that we can only imagine.
YOUR CHOICE = POSITIVITY IMPACT ON HUMANITY
So what can we do?
Become at One With Yourself
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One of the biggest steps that you can take in finding outer peace is finding inner peace. Take time out of your busy day to meditate and connect with yourself. Pat yourself on the back when you accomplish things. Spend time with those around you and really be in the moment. Stop and enjoy the things that are beautiful in the world around you instead of always dwelling on the negative and being too busy. Soothing yourself inside will help you to not overreact when you have to find ways to cope with problems that come your way. Center and balance yourself every chance that you get.
Are you in the habit of sitting in front of your television and watching the evening news? Aside from the special interest portion of the news, is most of what you are hearing negative and violent? Maybe you should make a change in what you are allowing yourself to watch and simply turn it off. Go outside and enjoy some time in your garden instead. Subscribe to newsletters and shows that give you a summary of the positives instead of the negatives.
Exposing ourselves to negative news stories and hearing about death and war will put us in a negative state of mind. It won’t hurt you to not listen to the bad things that are going on in the world. In fact, it may help your attitude and the perception of others to skip it.
Once you find peace within yourself, you can turn to those around you. Make it a point to forgive others around you who have hurt you. Let go of things that are festering inside you. Holding grudges takes up way too much of your energy. Redirect your negative energy into positive energy. Accept that you cannot change or control other people, so your efforts in doing so are wasteful. Love the people around you for who they are and realize that they are going to have morals, values, and opinions that differ from you because they aren’t you.
Let go of anger and vengeance because it actually harms you more than it harms the person you are angry or frustrated with. It is likely that they have long forgotten whatever it was that you were angry about in the first place. Why spend your efforts on something that isn’t even significant to that other person. You are only hurting yourself and your own inner peace.
If you are angry, sometimes it is good to get to the bottom of the anger. Determine the reason why you are so angry and work to resolve it within yourself in positive ways. Are you jealous because someone else has something that you don’t have? Why not turn that anger or envy around and gear your efforts towards accomplishing the things that you want.
Are you angry that someone else is doing something that you don’t approve of? Accept that other people have different standards of behavior and expectations than you. If they think something is moral and right and they are willing to accept the consequences of their actions, is it really important for you to show them disdain? You can’t control them.
The only person that you can control is you. Don’t let anyone else’s life create hardship or ill health for you. You can still be someone’s friend or acquaintance without accepting things that don’t fit your morals and values.
Spread that Peace to Our Immediate Surroundings
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You can start by showing kindness towards others in your home and in your neighborhood. If your neighbor makes a mistake, meet it with love, kindness and understanding. If your spouse or children make a mistake, show them that they are forgiven and their mistakes can be forgotten. Show each person in your life that they are better than their mistakes and that you value them for all of their positive traits.
The truth is that each person in the world needs to feel important. These feelings of importance can either come from kind people or family members, or they can come from people who are bad influences. Individuals who don’t feel loved and important or don’t feel like they fit in with society and are accepted can choose to take a darker path towards gaining power and control instead. The type of power that is based on making other people fearful can be turned around. Teaching other people love is much more powerful and affects so many more people.
Show other people that you are brave and not fearful. Don’t be afraid and anxious around others. Don’t be suspicious or deceptive. Greet people with humility and welcome each person with open and loving arms. Take in the truth as it is and don’t try to cover it up or be upset at the truth.
Let God judge other people’s actions instead of you judging them. Each one of us has to face consequences of our behaviors, but picking on someone who has made a mistake in life will not help them to change. If you have a problem with someone’s behavior, guide them towards help but realize that they must make the first step in order for their own behavior to change.
I know I have made more than my fair share of mistakes in my lifetime, that I have tried to fix, some more successfully, than others.
Now Widen that Reach...
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Surround yourself with positive people, positive thoughts and positive things. Look forward to each new day and simplify your life so that things won’t stress you out so much. Smile at strangers as you pass them on the street and make a point to hold the door open for them. If you are riding in the elevator with others, make a point to ask how their day is. The more people you affect positively by showing them that they are important and matter in the world, the more likely they are to pay it forward to someone else. Your simple acts of kindness and generosity, or your contagious smile can cause hundreds of other people to have a positive day and may even move them to do something productive for society that day instead of being destructive.
Learn ways to avoid conflict or resolve conflict and teach others ways to do the same. Small conflicts often lead to bigger conflicts. If each person is happier and has less conflict in their life, we will become a better society as a whole. Don’t stereotype others and try to get to know and accept each person individually. Don’t strive to fear or hate other people due to their differences, but try to work towards loving and accepting everyone for their differences. Better yet, try to learn different things from them in order to expand your own horizons. You might be surprised at what you learn from others if you just close your mouth and open your eyes and ears and observe them.
Be responsible and accountable in your own life. If you make a mistake, own up to it and try to resolve it. Be accountable for both your positive and negative actions. The only person who is responsible for your own actions and beliefs is you. Don’t try to control other people’s values, morals, beliefs, and actions. They are different than you. They may have different opinions because they have seen different things in the world than you have and have been raised differently than you. Don’t think that they are wrong just because they aren’t you.
Bring peace into your own life and into the lives of others by learning to let go of things that anger you or reasons that you want to judge other people. Let go of labelling that person as an enemy and try to add them to your friends list. Become a generous person to those around you and be a bigger person. Stop holding grudges towards others and try to start the relationships on a new foot. Chances are good that once you take that step, the other person will meet you halfway.
If you don’t want to be judged, try to refrain from judging others. Believe in others and let them believe in you. Give others the room to make mistakes and learn to forgive them for their mistakes, just like you would want others to forgive you if you made a mistake. You are not perfect, and neither should you expect other people around you to be perfect. Being judgmental and critical towards others makes them feel bad and makes you feel bad. Forgive so that you can be at peace inside yourself. Tell yourself that you deserve that peace and that grudges simply take too much energy that you could be directing towards something positive.
Don’t be discouraged that the world is in a bad place and that there are wars, death and famine in other places. Be grateful for all of the positive things that are in the world and celebrate the beautiful things that are around you. Dream of the future being a much better place for all of humankind. Open your heart up to those around you instead of closing it and being bitter because there are things in the world that are negative or bitter. Always strive to dream of things being better and the world being a better place.
Search for volunteer programs where you can give back to others. Join your church and make a difference there, too. Strive to help other people or do random acts of kindness whenever you are able. Make donations to charities if you are able so that you can bring a little piece of light and life into someone who is less fortunate than you. Participate in groups activities and be an active part of your church. Be an active person in your community. Get other people together and encourage them to be a part of the community, too.
Being generous towards others and being helpful can start right at home. Go through your house and your garage and clean out any of the old items that are no longer useful to you anymore. You can use these things to donate to other people and make their life a lot brighter. At the same time as you are being generous towards others, you are de-cluttering your own life. This should make you feel good inside and out.
Make it a point every day to compliment someone else or to tell them how much their service has meant to you. Maybe someone at a checkout counter was particularly helpful. Look them in the eye and thank them for their service to you. Give them a smile and make them feel like they matter. Make it known that their efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. Many times a person in a service job is getting crummy wages for being there to help you. A small pat on the back will go a long ways towards making their job less drab and making them feel positive about their own future.
Schedule some time into your life to mentor someone else. You can teach them the skills that you know so that they can pass it down to the next generations. Your legacy will follow you and others will remember you for years each time that they do something with the skill that you taught them. Skills can help a person become a more valuable member of their community, help to keep them positive, and help them to bring value to others and feel included instead of being left out. If you teach someone a skill, it helps them feel useful. Being a mentor also helps you to feel useful.
If you notice other people around you who are fearful and unsure of themselves, be supportive and show them the way. Make a point to help guide others who are lost instead of being judgmental or indifferent to them. Make a point to notice other people who are around you that are struggling and try to take them under your wing. Give others trust and the benefit of the doubt instead of judging them or taking someone else’s word for how they are. Sometimes when a person falters, all they need is just one person to believe in them in order for them to steer back on the right track instead of being on the wrong track.
Ensure that you never speak ill of others or participate in gossip. Strive to be a positive person with your voice and in your words. If you are great with public speaking, you can use that talent to bring positive and forward-thinking messages to others. If you love to write and are talented with words, you can write ebooks teaching others how to strive for world peace. If you are gifted with design and art, create fliers and pamphlets that teach others how to be positive and forward-thinking. Even if you touch one other person in the world, your efforts will be worth it. But wouldn’t it be great if you touched hundreds, or maybe even thousands?
Work to build things in your world and in your community that others will appreciate. Teach other people how to build things with their hands. When the world around us is filled with beautiful things, people will be less apt to want to destroy things and will be less negative. Beautiful building, flowers, gardens, and art have an amazing way of warming up others and brightening their day. People feel more free and more at peace when their world is created from beautiful things instead of being run down and falling apart. Joining Habitat for Humanity programs to help build housing for others is an extremely rewarding way to contribute back to your society and to build a community that people will be proud of living in and not want to destroy it.
Gear some of your efforts towards children and provide them guidance. Children are our future. Show children the benefits of being kind towards other people and animals. Teach them how to be loving and understanding. Teach them to use their mouths less and use their ears and eyes more. Show children and yourself how to be compassionate towards other people. The lessons that you are teaching them will last a lifetime. Better yet, they will touch thousands of other people throughout their lifetime and then through the next generations, so you may have made an impact on more people than you could ever have imagined.
CONCLUSION
Every person whose life you touch has the ability to either follow good choices or to follow bad choices. If Hitler had better or different experiences throughout his life, maybe just one person to change the course that he was on, the world may have been a very different place. One person can create a world war just as one person can create world peace. One mentor to Hitler may have caused him to be famous for something great instead of something violent.
Martyrs are guided towards bombings and aggressive behavior to stand up for something that others asked them to believe in. What if you asked them to stand up for world peace instead? Maybe they would be the next savior instead of a martyr. War and conflict give pain to everyone. The dead that result from war aren’t happy and relieved that war has happened to them. It takes a little bit of effort and it can make a huge difference in someone else’s life and in the lives that they are to influence in the future.
One change can make all the difference. One person can make all the difference. If you make just one small commitment to take the first step towards peace inside yourself, that is one more step towards peace for everyone. Your efforts do matter and they may even go so far as to save other people from great pain and sorrow. Rather than looking at the world with hopelessness and disdain, let us all look at the world with hope, peace and love in our eyes and in our hearts.