Peace: How to Completely Change the World

It feels like the end of times. We have a plague, murder, anarchy, protests, and violation of laws in many other ways. We are hurting, and consumed with anger, which is a more violent mask that fear often wears.

It’s easy to look around and want this world to change. We don’t feel safe.

This is a reminder that evil exists. It is also a wake up call for us never to fight hate with hate. For when we do, we are no better than those who hurt us.

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.

It may seem like we are helpless or we cannot find the end of our anger, but there is a way to overcome all of this and ultimately, change the world. That way is in our mindset, our hearts, and our actions.

Each of us that is consumed with anger right now, needs to pause. Pausing gives us a moment to check in with ourselves. An opportunity to make peace with what we feel, so we can refrain from inflicting more pain and more harm when we do act.

Our ability to channel outrage into positive measures like supporting those who have lost their loved ones, or joining movements that want to end racism and corruption, is more important now than ever. It’s also important to remember that we cannot fuel ourselves only with anger…anything sustainable needs to be tended with love, whether it’s garden, a global movement for unity, or a new-born baby.

So let’s feel our anger in healthy ways that don’t create harm. It’s important to grieve. Once we give ourselves that pause to feel what we feel without reacting from it, then we can return to love.

A new world comes from a heart refreshed with love, and armed with peace.

Shed vengeance and violence. Find and grow your inner peace, and bring that to every person you interact with, and you will change the world.

It may seem impossible, but it is not. Through meditation, reflection, and by sharing our emotions in healthy ways, we can grow into what this world desperately cries out for: peace.

Peace starts inside you, and emanates outward. Peace is an active practice. Photo by Candice Seplow on Unsplash

PS. Check out my message about George Floyd’s murder.

4 comments

  • Nathaniel Cornelius

    Awesome ! Your message has come at the correct time! An eye for an eye or for that matter demonstrations, burning looting is not the answer. This brings about a lot if turmoil and destruction and greatly affects human life mentally as well as psychologically.
    Thanks for your insights which makes us think and realise what we are in for and what we should do.
    Well thought, and I salute you.
    God bless

    • Marilyn Cornelius

      Thank you so much for your comments. It is certainly not easy to refrain from revenge, but that is our task if we are to stop this cycle of violence…

  • Beautifully written. We need to put our intense feelings into positive actions. Support the injured, stand by them, make your presentations to people in authority who can make policy decision, pressurize leaders to take action. Hate and destruction are not solutions – they add to the problems. Love, peace, support for the victims and standing by our principles help towards a solution. We need to be better than the pepetrators.

    • Marilyn Cornelius

      Yes we need to take action from the heart toward real solutions..thank you!