Our existence is relevant to us because it’s all we have now, but there is so much more to come after us. We must understand, what do we want our impact on the world to be?

If I had a dollar for every time I saw something on Facebook, and wanted to ream out the person for posting it – and didn’t, I would start a travel fund.  And trust me I’d travel the world…

I know there will be responses to what I say, and they won’t all be positive. I also struggle to pick a side for anything because I value my relationships with others, and what they think about me. I would rather embody my opinions and morals, living them out each day, rather than trying to shove them down someone else’s throat.

Everyone has an opinion, and yes, we are all entitled to one, but sometimes they should be kept to themselves. My mom always told me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it at all.” To this, I say there are three types of people in the world.

There are those who speak up and say how they feel, those that critique people for speaking up and those who stay silenced. There are several motivations for staying silenced, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have anything to say. In fact, you are probably housing the words that could heal the festering sores of society.

I think we are finally starting to reap the consequences of being stuck behind our screens, monitors and tablets all day long. Social media stops us from having these real conversations and hashing things out. I would be lying if I said the biggest problems in America don’t keep me up at night. Perhaps I should have been born in the ’60s.

I just can’t believe that in today’s world, we are arguing about whose life matters more. To me, it’s a no brainer. We all matter.

I would be the first person to speak up if I saw any sort of social injustice. All lives are so valuable; they cannot be traded for a new one and can be lost at any second, without any premonition. Why would you not live everyday as if it were your last, showing kindness to everyone? When a person dies, it’s a tragedy…the biggest tragedy for the poor soul that didn’t think their life would end that day.

We need to foster an environment that appreciates diversity and promotes everyone’s differences. Again, I guess the 60’s would have been my era but maybe I contribute my even keeled, peace-loving personality to the saint I call my mother. Every day, when she would drive me to middle school in our lime green punch buggy, we would play the song Beautiful by Christina Aguilera and sing along. It goes a little like this:

I am beautiful no matter what they say.

Words can’t bring me down.

I am beautiful in every single way.

Yes, words can’t bring me down… Oh no.

So don’t you bring me down today.

It baffles me that not everyone thinks this way. I think if we did, we wouldn’t always be offended so easily. If you believe in yourself and what you are capable of, then those that are trying to bring you down won’t matter. Regardless of whose lives matter more, we should be practicing kindness on a daily basis, hopefully every minute of the day.

Mother Teresa once said, “If everyone of us would sweep their own doorstep, the whole world would be clean.” We all have a personal responsibility to be the best version of ourselves, and the best version of that to others as well. Change starts with ourselves. We encounter so many choices every day. What if there was a way for each of us to alter our decisions that would make the world a “cleaner” place? It’s important to have an open heart, a gracious attitude and patience for people that are different than ourselves.

My heart breaks for those that are victims to police brutality and injured while they are innocent. At the same time, I yearn for healing in broken families that have lost a parent simply because of their career choice and something horrible that happened on the job.

We are the toughest critics we know, but what we forget is that humans are flawed. We are not perfect and we make mistakes, and should be held accountable. I can’t tell you where this problem ends, if it ever does. But, I can tell you where it starts, and that is being kind to others that are different than us.