Jeremy C Kester

There is a lot in the world that we wish was different. There is a lot that should be different. Things should be better; things shouldn’t be so damn bad. While we wait for leaders to pull their heads out of their asses, or we urge others to change, there’s a simple question we are forgetting to ask ourselves: what are we doing to make it better ourselves?

The thing is, people rarely change unless they wish to. There’s coerced behavioral changes, as one might find in a totalitarian regime. But that is fear-based control. It isn’t genuine. The purpose of behavior in those cases is removal of the fear.

Too often we believe we need to force people into compliance. We believe that our own way is the best way and that people are too ignorant to understand the truth. We fail to recognize that there might exist many truths, and that often those truths are situationally dependent, meaning that they aren’t right or wrong all the time. What might be a truth that works in my life might fail miserably as a functional answer in someone else’s. Even so, why are we worried about others? Why do we try to coerce others into behaviors?

I assert that there is somewhat of an insecurity behind our behaviors. We worry about what others do, say, act, believe, etc because we are so unsure of ourselves. They become reflections of ourselves magnifying our own thoughts and actions — even for actions and thoughts that don’t genuinely mirror our own. It’s easy to hate someone for showing a trait we wished we had than to do something about it… than to see if we can make a change in our own life. But we must be our own change.

What is it we want to see better in the world? Do we want to see people being more honest? Be more honest. Do we want better leaders? Be a better leader. Whatever the traits we want to see others have, we must instead turn inward; we must make those changes in ourselves.

Others should not be our concern here. Change will only happen in this world when we are all brave enough to focus the change we desire in the world upon ourselves. Then, we can be there as examples for others to follow when they find that they are ready. Until then, we can make ourselves a bit better and in turn change the world a little bit to the better.