Hope Begins With Me

What if you are held responsible for all of your actions, even the ones no one knows about?

The way you live, the groceries you buy, or don't buy, what you do with your garbage, how you talk in front of your children and grandchildren, the thoughts you think at night as you go to sleep?

You are you know. Everyone is. Eventually the world we live in will reflect who we are, because eventually what was only an after thought in this generation will become something bigger and bigger and bigger.

Today's world is the result of what came before today. It is no accident. It is the direct result of how you voted, or didn't vote, how you spent your money, your time, your thoughts. You can pass the buck, but you can't escape.

What is the answer? I honestly don't know, so I do the best I can to be simple, honest, generous with my time and spend the money I have as wisely as I know how. I may not make all the right decisions, but I try to educate myself with as much truth as I can find. Being wealthy may make me look successful and wise, but it won't save my great grandchildren from a world that is rapidly going downhill. That's going to take more of us doing what is really right, not just carrying signs, or shooting people, or throwing our weight around, no matter how good our reasons, or causes are.

Saving our world means that, one at a time, every single solitary human being, needs to find a way to do the right things for the right reasons. As long as one human being goes to bed hungry, one person dies from a disease there is a treatment for, one person is discriminated against because of something that does not actually hurt another, we are so far off the beaten track we wouldn't recognize it if we were carried over and laid gently right in the middle.

Don't tell me that "right" is the key word here, that everyone has a different description of right. I am talking about concrete things, not ideas. I am talking about adequate food, shelter, health care, useful employment and clothing. Once that is genuinely taken care of we can debate the rest.

Every step every one takes in this direction is a step towards hope.