The world is not a terrible place. There is always hope and
we will continue to go on and do amazing, unbelievable and positive things as a
society. Tragedy is a part of being alive – it’s a terrible thing and we all
hope to experience as little of it as possible throughout our lives, but it
exists and will continue to exist for as long as we do. We are a smart, hearty
and resilient people who learn from our experiences in an effort to make the
good times better and the bad times less frequent. But the key to doing this is
to listen to one another, to try and understand one another, to care about and
for one another. Without this very simple act, we make it incredibly hard on
ourselves to improve our situations.
Remember all the adages we learned as kids in school? ‘The
Golden Rule’, ‘walk a mile in another persons shoes’, ‘don’t judge a book by
its cover’, ‘make new friends, but keep the old’… these are not just little quips we teach to children because they
sound nice. They are the building blocks of a thriving and powerful society.
Applied to the world of children it may mean something as simple as don’t make
fun of Bobby because he likes pickles on his sandwiches, but translated into
the adult world it’s everything from religion to love, family, professions,
recreations, and material goods. It means taking a second to breath and think
before reacting with hate and anger and disagreement. It means using that
second to “walk that mile in their shoes” and perhaps understand – even if it’s
the tiniest most fraction of an understanding – what it is that makes that other
person feel or act that way.
I don’t know whether times really are that tumultuous right
now or if it just seems that way because we have a 24-hour news cycle and
unlimited access to social communication with people from all reaches of the
globe, but one thing I do know is that we will move forward; we always have and
we always will because surviving, adapting, evolving and thriving is what we do.
Pandora’s Box, from Greek mythology, was a jar containing pain,
turmoil, disease and a plethora of other terrible burdens. Pandora opened this
box and let all these terrible plagues out into the world for man to
experience. But what Pandora didn’t know was that also contained inside this
“box of destruction” was hope. Hope, so that even in the seemingly darkest of
times, man could believe that things would get better. Hope is key to the human
condition. Hope is positive thinking and belief turned to action. Hope
transcends our differences. Whether you believe a God will help to make things
better or that we as humans are entirely responsible for our betterment and
advancement, hope lies at the center.
Religion is a belief. No one knows for certain whether a God
(any God) exists. Those who believe do just that – they take it on faith and
hope that this deity exists and is up there looking down on them and in one way
or another, through a series of signs, is affecting the events of their life.
This is a beautiful and powerful concept that requires continuous devotion and
love and should be respected. If this is what you believe in, then that is
great. I don’t believe in any religion. I am not Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist
or any other faith. I am a good person who wakes up every day looking for the
good in the world and for the positive in my experiences. I am good to the
stranger on the street for no reason other than he too is a human and deserves
respect and consideration.
I think that people should be able to immigrate to America in
the hopes of starting a better life for their family; I think we need much
stricter gun control; I strongly think that any two people who love each other
should be able to marry in the fullest sense of the meaning and raise a family
together. I believe that humans should be able to go to the doctor without
first thinking about how much it will cost. I believe in all of these things and more, and I also respect
your right and opinion to believe the opposite.
I believe so deeply and so truly, right down to my little
toes, that humans are good. This is a belief that has been tested much over the
last few years of my young adulthood, but it is one that has not wavered. There
is no doubt a lot of hate out there, but I do not think it outweighs the love;
I just think it’s easier to expel hate in the oft-anonymous online world in
which we conduct our lives. So in the wake of this inexplicable and
unparalleled tragedy let’s not instantaneously jump into fights with each other
over what we do and don’t think are the appropriate or inappropriate steps, but
rather take that second to breath and open a discussion with one another about how
we can come together and work to better everyone's situation for next time.
