stop, look, listen, love

"Listen. sit back. open your eyes as you close your ears to the noises that wouldn't be here if it weren't for our species. The world was fine long before humans, maybe even better off. And it will be again long after you and I are gone.  How beautiful were our cities before we got to them? Before we moved mountains and filled in rivers and carved away the earth where it didn't suit us. We could have bathed in any of its waters we chose. Before our harsh toxins with unpronounceable names. We would live as the animals live, as we were meant to live (for we are simply animals, are we not?).

The slow, old, sick animals die. The animals living in places prone to drought die. But we make ourselves poor by giving aid to those who live in places where they wouldn't normally survive. We make the old poor by making them pay to live, then we force them to take on an $8.00 per hour Wal- Mart job in order to buy cat food and their grandkids' Christmas presents.

We shouldn't be like this. We weren't meant to be like this. We were put on this planet to live like animals, to have the sole purpose of our lives to be survival. How did we come this far with such a terrible attitude and no need to remember the valuable lessons of history?

I see so much wrong in the world and in humans, yet let's acknowledge and then dismiss all of the wrong that exists, (for only then can we begin to process it and possibly come up with solutions). How can we have solutions? By using what we have and animals don't. Our minds. Our memories of the fates of every society before ours that has fallen. And our memories of the great creations that these cultures, too, had.

Not by using our vices- our greed our hunger, our need to be better than our neighbors, but by using simple compassion. We have souls and hearts and the ability to make our actions better the lives of others in our species. We can make the world better only by love. By smiling at whoever you see walking down the street. By always holding the door for the person behind you even if it takes twenty seconds out of your day. Your life is already years longer than it would have been if humans had never met civilization. And you have already accomplished much more than you would ever have if our sole purpose in life were to carry on the species. So breathe. Stop. Look. Listen. Love.

How can you make someone's life better if you are too concerned about yourself? Look outside yourself. When someone asks you how you are don't just tell them. Ask how they are. Your coworkers, friends, family, the cashier at the store. If someone tells you to have a nice day tell them to have one as well. Again, we have time in life. Think about all the time you spend on the internet each day, often impacting no one but yourself. Take it upon yourself to find reason to care about even people you assume you wouldn't be able to care about. Hold the elevator door. Smile at the person in the elevator with you. Ask them how their day is going. This is compassion. This is love.

And what if we all teach our children to do this, and they teach their children? And children are taught to love their planet and love their neighbors? And understand that there is one spiritual element to this world, though people around the world may regard it slightly differently. And get that this spirit is the reason scientists haven't fully developed a way to measure raw human emotion. And know that there are beautiful nuances to each and every language that give insights  into culture. And by learning a language we can understand our fellow man.

Let us all become citizens of the world and refuse to accept cruelty in any form!" The girl yelled this from the highest mountain, for she was frustrated with the people she saw daily complaining about their world but never trying to change it. She waited for a minute almost hoping she would get an instantaneous response or a resounding cry of agreement heard round the world. She heard only the sound of a chip bag being blown by the breeze. She sighed wondering what she alone could do for the world.

Nearby a young man left a coffee shop and paused slightly before he crossed the street. He casually was checking his email on his mobile phone while also checking his reflection in the glass of the store front (assuring that every bit of his designer clothing was in place). He turned his head slightly before he crossed, making sure that his face was at just the right angle to be viewed by the young woman who was about to cross the street also.  Meeting her gaze and holding it for a moment  while giving her a slight grin, he finished crossing the street, drank the last of his coffee, and threw his cup that read "please recycle" straight into the trash.