A different world cannot be built by indifferent people...

Our greatest enemy is apathy. Not the apathy of others, but the apathy of ourselves. When we foster the belief, inside of ourselves, that the things we do make no difference in the world, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy which serves to kill our hope and motivation. When we choose to believe that an individual can make no impact, that our presence or participation within the political system, or the world, doesn't matter, that our actions are inconsequential, then we do a great disservice to ourselves and our world. The only way anything is ever accomplished is through the actions of individual people. While it may be true that people working together can create a much larger impact and result, the fact remains that every accomplishment begins with a single action. 

Take George Bailey for example. The film It's a Wonderful Life provides an excellent example of the impact one person can have on the world. In case you've never seen this classic, Jimmy Stewart plays a character who, after enduring many disappointing bouts of bad luck and perceived failures, questions whether everyone in his life would be better off had he never existed. His guardian angel then allows him to see what the world would have been like had he never been born. Ultimately, he sees that he has positively affected everyone around him, that he's saved lives, and enabled success, and enriched the town in which he grew up. Although others have gone on to achieve grand things while he has been resigned to a small life, his actions have enabled their achievements, and his small concentrated efforts have made a much larger impact on the world around him overall. If you've never seen it, I recommend watching it at least once. It will inspire you to feel less inconsequential in the real world.

Films aside, this truth still remains. Our actions affect everyone around us in ways we could never begin to fathom. Every journey begins with a single step. You may not feel as though the things you do can possibly have any effect on the state of the world, but imagine the billion (at least) other people on the planet feel the same way, and then imagine if each of them did one small, good thing, how much one billion small, good things would affect the world. People are largely doing good things each day the world over. For the most part, we all take care of ourselves and our families, maintain our homes and surrounding communities, pay our taxes, try to improve our lives, and these things are all good, and keep the world moving forward. Imagine if we all expanded the good we do each day by just a few small acts, how much we could accomplish overall.

It is possible to change the world. But it will never happen if we keep expecting someone else to do all the work to achieve the things we, ourselves, want. We all complain about the state of "things", and disparage the political system, and curse the world. How many of us spend any portion of our free time striving to change the things we deem ill in it? How many of us change the way we live in order to accommodate our ideals rather than our laziness? If we don't stop choosing what is easy over what is right, things are never going to change.

In the end, we can only control our own actions, and therefore, we must be the change we want to see. If you don' t like the way the world is, then you can only begin to change it by being better  yourself and hoping it influences others to the same end. If you don't like the way the government functions, then get involved in the political process, read, vote, run for office. The government, and the world, are made up of people. They are us. So if we don't like it, let's change it. 

Real change is never easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easily attained. Try to do something active and helpful. Be involved with trying to create solutions. Donate, volunteer, vote, think, give, love, try to understand. Read the whole article, do the research, be politically active (even though it seems exhausting), talk about the real issues (even when it creates tension), argue, and stand up in the streets, and fight for a better way. Stop abiding laziness in our government, in each other, in ourselves. I think we can all do better than this. The first step is to kill the apathy within ourselves.