Today's society

For days I have felt this overpowering, almost consuming need to write. Not to just write about anything, but to write something profound, something that really means something. Being someone who typically tries to keep the tragic events happening in today's society at bay, serious usually isn't something that comes naturally to me. Until now.

I was sitting here when a realization hit me. We go through life idly, not stopping to take in all of the absolutely beautiful things that are going on around us, at any given moment.

How many people stop during the day just to watch a young child discover something that was previously unknown to them? I love seeing the look on their faces when that light inside their head goes on, the exact moment when they realize that they have found something truly amazing. As adults, we often overlook the smaller things in life. We're too preoccupied to care about such things, they seems so tiny in comparison to the everyday hustle and bustle that makes up the greater part of our days.

Then I got to thinking about the people that we pass every day. People who say hello in the grocery line and whether it be due to apprehension or aggravation, we don't bother to return the simple gesture. Maybe a neighbor that has lived beside you , yet you haven't taken the opportunity to get to know them. The homeless man on the street corner that we turn our noses up at, or make an unfair judgment about. It got me wondering, How could a simple gesture like a hello or an introduction, change the course of a life? Yours or theirs.

I think that we as a society, need to take the time out of our lives to appreciate our surroundings. Smile at a stranger even on days when we feel that we have nothing left to smile about. Watch your children as they go along their journey of youth, they might teach you something new. Go and introduce yourself to the person who lives next door, you may just find a good friend whom you otherwise would have never found. Stop and talk to the homeless man, ask him about himself. You might find out that your judgment was wrong and that life threw him circumstances that were harsh, maybe harsher than you could have imagined.

My point in all of this is, we complain about the world we live in but we don't do anything to change it. I myself have been guilty of this on more than one occasion. We don't practice the values that we were taught as young children. Kindness, understanding, patience, sympathy and love are things that seem almost non exsistant nowadays but maybe they aren't as lost as they seem, maybe we just need to reach inside of ourselves and rediscover them. Open our eyes and notice the beauty that is right in front of us, at any given time.