Be a Better Person

Every day you wake up and think "the world can't get any worse".  And every day it turns out you're wrong.

I don't know what makes a monster.

I don't know what kind of animal wakes up and decides to murder a child, let alone 20.

I don't know whether he had a terrible upbringing, whether his parents carved his evil, or if he was just born twisted.

What I do know is this; we are a nation of narcissists.  Right now politicians and ordinary citizens are beating their chests, lighting their torches and raising their banners.  "Guns don't kill people."  "If we get rid of the guns, things like this wouldn't happen."

What those people won't be saying is the truth.  There is evil in the world. Bad things happen to the undeserving and the innocent.  There is nothing you can do to prevent that.  And Right, Left or in the Middle, we failed those children.

Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green Party... as a whole, we failed them.

I didn't put a gun in the hand of the killer just by supporting the Second Amendment.  You didn't make him crazy by supporting Obamacare.  But though we can't account for one lone mad man with a gun, what we have done over years and decades is foster an environment that makes it easier for things like this to happen.

I think it started well before I was born, but I know it happened in my lifetime.  You can feel it in the air. This isn't the world we were given. And it damn sure isn't the world we were promised.  We made it worse. We got lazy. We got careless.  We became entitled and self-satisfied.  We created a nation of narcissists.

It's a narcissist that thinks so little about others that he slaughters children.

It's a narcissist that uses 27 dead bodies to win an argument about politics.

And it's a narcissist that looks outward for blame, instead of looking inward and saying "what can I do?"

Do you want to know what you can do to the slow the decay?  Do you want to know how best to create a safer environment for your children? Do you want to know how you can best honor the dead?

Be a better person.

Wake up tomorrow and try to be a better person than you were the day before.  And the next day, do the same. And the next. And the next.

When you're in a bad mood, don't put it on the people you work and live with.

If you have to talk about politics, stop treating the other side like they are your enemy.  They're not evil. They merely have a different opinion.  And ask yourself, do you want what is best for everyone, or do you merely want to be right?

Don't demonize the beliefs of others. For the atheists, this should especially be tragic, as those lives are simply gone. For the religious, it is tragic still. And if there is a day when you should want to believe in God and Heaven, this is it.

Be a better friend, a better husband or daughter. Be a better student or a harder worker.  I don't know if there is a God or a Heaven, but what I do know is that life is short and precious. All that we have in this world is what we give and put out.  How will you be remembered?  Did you leave the world a better place than you found it?  Or did you selfishly squander the opportunities you had?

Be a better person.  Maybe one kind word will stop a kid from jumping off of a bridge. Maybe a positive influence keeps someone off of drugs.

Or maybe it just makes your life more worthwhile. But it's as close to truth as you will ever find.