With so much trouble going on in the world it might feel like there is no certainty about anything anymore. Everybody has such differing opinions about how things should be. I suppose it’s always been this way. But I feel like confusion is running rampant right now and that a lot of people don’t know where to stand.
I have a few things to say. If you don’t know what to stand for, don’t just sit down and let other people dictate to you how the world is going to be run. Have convictions. If you don’t have a conviction, find one. It’s better to feel strongly about something than to be void of passion and life.
But how does this solve any real problems? People all over the world feel strongly about their ideas, and other people feel strongly about opposing ideas and it just seems like it is tearing the world apart.
Perhaps having convictions isn’t enough. So, I’d remind everyone that regardless of who you are, regardless of political affiliation, religious ideology, sexual orientation, skin color, or profession, that there is certainty in one principle. That is love.
It saddens me that I need to define what sort of love I’m talking about, but I want to make it clear to everyone that this is what I mean when I say that we need to love one another. I’ve taken a definition from the Merriam Webster’s online dictionary. Love is an: unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another.
This doesn’t mean that we have to lower our standards to accept every ideal held by every other person in the world. This means that we, regardless of our convictions will remain a steadfast friend with open arms to all those around us despite differences in opinion.
And it’s not only in the fact that love is contagious will this start to solve the worlds problems, but it is in the unmistakable true premise that there is a definite universally right course of action that leads to happiness and a definite wrong course of action that leads to sorrow. This applies to large scale government bodies all the way down to single individuals. There is light and darkness, there is a right and wrong, there is pleasure and pain, there is peace and misery. These things do exist.
Upon this reality, I truly believe that people at their core just want to be happy and loved. So at this point if we know that it is true that right and wrong exist along with their accompanied consequences it becomes a matter of telling the difference. Sometimes consequences don’t manifest immediately. And sometimes people are pretty convincing in their arguments. So how do we go about determining accurately what we should stand for?
I want you to stand up right now. Think about something that is wrong in the world, pick a side to fight for, gain a conviction in it to try and make the world a better place, but I stress this point: do not do anything unless you are capable of wholly assimilating into your conviction the principle of love as I have defined it above. If you truly do this and keep love as your guiding star than I testify that your conviction will either be strengthened or weakened in your mind and your heart. Love will guide you in the right direction and when it starts to go somewhere that you never thought possible. Follow it.
If we can accept that love is true and brings happiness, it should be this easy. Controversies will melt away, confusion will cease, clarity will become abundant. And when, either on the large scale, or on the individual scale an entity has committed themselves to this truth there remains two things left to do: (1) fight with all of your faculties for what is right, and then (2) with open arms help wipe away the heartache and sorrow of those who might be for the first time experiencing what it really means to love and be loved.