People often say "We need to leave a better world for our children." This is only partially correct. We need to leave a better world for everyone on the planet after us! But we also need to do what we can, right now, to improve the world!
Spread kindness and understanding. Face down bigotry and hatred with compassion and truth. Recycle! Whatever you can do, do it! Even if your sole contribution is picking up an occasional piece of trash, that's still more than others do, so feel good about it! Don't be one who takes and never gives back, we are all living on the same world, and we all have an equal responsibility to take care of it, for ourselves, those we care about, and the rest of our fellow beings, be they human, animal, rodent, amphibian... you get the idea. :)
Use your resources consciously, taking only what you need, and make sure there's some left for the next person. Care for your personal environment, as well as the global one.
Remember: We only have one world. If we mess it up, where will we go? How will we live?
It's a proven fact: Music bypasses several cognitive stages that other information must travel through to affect us and settle in our memory. Music creates connections that can include all five senses in the creation of a recollection, giving it a much more "present" feeling in one's mind.
Music springs from, and fuels, our inner passions. Music soothes us when we're weary, elates us when we're celebratory, and teaches us when we want to know more. Music tells stories available from no other form of communication. Music can accompany any and all parts of our lives, and for many people, does!
In all of the world, in all of the forms of communication, music is unique in its ability to move us, to movitate us, to reassure us, and to make us feel more of a connection to the world than anything other form of sound.
Take advantage of the power of music (especially classic rock, in our not-so-humble opinion), to help get you through the different situations in your life. Let the music help you celebrate, or mourn, or face uncertainty, or just relax. But make it a part of your life on a regular basis. Whatever music moves you, incorporate it into your daily activities and celebrate the fact that we, as human beings, created music and added it to our various world cultures!
There is an old saying in news: "If it bleeds, it leads." Fear-based news stories prey on the anxieties we all have and then hold us hostage. And they convince us that the world is a darker place than it actually is!
Dr. Danilo Yanich, a media scholar from the Associate Professor in the School of Urban Affairs at the University of Delaware, has found that news, especially local television news, creates a skewed vision of reality. In short, the news shows us a concentrated grouping of the worst of humanity, but it's not representative of humanity as a whole!
There are millions upon millions of good things happening all across the world at any given moment. The fact that our media sources choose not to focus on them is purely an attempt to play on our fears and convince us that we must continue to partake in their grim-fests.
Humanity, as a whole, is a positive, good, and caring community. People, in general, are more good than bad. In the movie Silverado, the character of Paden, played by Kevin Kline, says "I figure you might as well go through life thinking everyone's your friend or nobody is. Either way is doesn't make much difference." So, why not think everyone's your friend until you prove otherwise? It's just as easy as thinking no one is, and eminently more pleasant.
In any situation, encounter, or setting, you have a choice: You can respond with positivity or you can respond with negativity. Some might say there is a third option, you can respond with indifference, but indifference is a lack of caring and, thus, is a form of negativity.
You have the choice. Your choice will influence others around you. Therefore, since positivity puts something good into the world, and negativity puts something dark into the world, make the choice to be positive. Try to find the good in the situation, or person, you're coping with. This is, perhaps, the hardest thing to do, especially for some who suffer from emotional impairment like depression or grief, but try. Make the attempt.
There will be times when you will fail, when the negativity and darkness will well to the surface almost against your wishes. That's okay. Sometimes you have no alternative but to acknowledge negativity, for it would be inappropriate to do otherwise. When a loved one dies, there an overwhelming sense of loss, and loss is seldom positive, for example.
But if you have a choice, put more positive energy out into the world. You never know when your choice will have an impact on someone else. Perhaps your nod and smile just changed someone's day. Perhaps you found a positive spin that another couldn't see and you've allowed them an alternative path to follow. Trying to stay positive, and send messages that reflect that attempt, help everyone involved, especially you.