complaining...

it’s amazing to me sometimes how often i hear people complaining about the state of things in our culture. it seems to me the lion’s share of it is leveled at our government. perhaps you’ve even done a fair amount of complaining about our political leadership yourself.

what do you want from our government? what is it you’d like them to do about our society’s problems? are you looking to them to improve the quality of education? bolster the economy? help the homeless? make our neighborhoods safer? think for a moment, exactly what is it you would like to happen? at their most basic level, each of these perceived problems has to do with people, each is a situation or recurring problem that has to do with individual people.

and what or better yet who is the government you’re asking to do these things? our government isn’t some mystical wizard who waves a magic wand and things magically happen. our government is people, just like you and me. whatever solution you want will ultimately be administered by individual people, perhaps someone in a government uniform or wearing an id badge clipped to their shirt. whoever it is, people helping people is what’s going to change these societal woes. when substantial change occurs in a society, it happens one person at a time.

consider this, you’re a person. why not cut out the middleman and handle it directly. yes, you. stop passing the buck. it’s the complainer’s cop-out to say “i pay my taxes, the government should handle it”.

here’s some pretty obvious information for you. whether they should or shouldn’t repair our societal woes to your satisfaction isn’t the issue. the fact is they can’t, if they could, they would have by now. they’re not fixing it because they are incapable. they’re inept, corrupt and incompetent. so it’s up to us; me and you.

do you want children to be better educated? take an interest in one kid and personally educate him or her. i don’t mean pay someone to tutor them, i mean YOU teach them what you know.

do you want to see the economy improve? start a small business. do it on the internet, do it out of your garage but do it.

do you want to help the homeless? you help them. start a dialogue with one homeless person and convince him or her that they could live better and then you help them directly figure out a way to do it.

do you want a better, safer neighborhood? go out and get in touch with your neighborhood. the best and safest neighborhoods are the ones where everyone knows each other and they take an interest in one another’s wellbeing. the government can’t do that, but you personally could start your neighborhood heading in a better direction today by getting together with your neighbors.

it’s easy to make a difference. the chain reaction of compassion is contagious and easy to start. you can be the one to start it. yes, you. someone’s going to have to do it, why not you? why not now? stop complaining and get moving. you don’t have to change the world, just change one person’s world, which just might change your whole world.
i guarantee you will do something about society's problems today, you’re either going to complain some more or you’re going to actually do something. which is it going to be?