The Declaration

There are some things that should go unsaid, but there are a lot of instances where these things aren't apparent and need to be reiterated. Be a good person is one of those things.

The whole purpose of this blog, and of the Global Transfusion Movement as a whole for that matter, is to encourage others to go out and make the world a better place. Unfortunately, this is quite a large task, and there isn't a whole lot of help coming in from the world at large. This got me thinking about why this isn't happening the world over? Why isn't it human nature to make the world a better place? Why are we continuing to push against the societal good?

Unfortunately, I don't have the answer. If I did I assume there would be a peace prize in my future. What I do know is that we have to start standing up and fixing this problem now, before we reach the point of no return. We can fix this world. At least I hope we can fix it. We may already be too far gone at this point to be able to be cordial with one another again. We may be destined to continuously degrade beyond the point of casual disinterst to a genuine disdain or hatred for one another. But I personally can't imagine living in that world. I can't sit by and watch the world my kids are growing up in deteriorate into a world of hatred and strife.

I am making my declaration. I am taking a stand. I am not going to sit by and watch the world fall apart. And I'm not going to sit by and take baby steps any longer. The world needs to change and it needs to change on a global scale, and the only way the world is going to change on a global scale, is by recruiting people on a global scale. World change requires world participation. Let's go out and get it.

Focal Points

There is a lot going on these days. And if you are anything like me, you're trying to take it all in at once. I spend all day trying to stay caught up on just the most crucial of things and still have a lot of things that fall through the cracks. This is all well and good, but when I finally had some time to sit down and reflect on the things I spend my time focusing on, one things became apparent. I waste a lot of time on trivial things.

And I don't mean trivial in the sense of trying to keep up on celebrity gossip or the newest trends in music. I mean trivial in the sense that my involvement in them will have no great impact on the world at large. And ultimately, the world at large won't be any better or worse because of them.

Now, these things all have their place I suppose, but we need to look at the bigger picture. What are we not focusing in on as a society because of the amount of time we spend on the trivial? What kind of impact could we make if we just spent some small amount of time that we normally spend on trivial things trying to make the world a better place?

The only way to find out for sure is by turning off the tv, putting up the computer, getting out into the world we all know to be severely broken, and making a difference.

Hearing vs Listening

The title of this blog is pretty transparent. I'm not using any symbolism or word play. I'm not trying to be obscure or creative in any special way. I'm not even trying to make a deep and impactful statement. I'm merely saying that there is a difference between hearing someone speak and listening to someone speak, and we, as a society, have taken a turn toward hearing more than we listen.

When you hear someone speak, you know what words they say and you hear them speaking. You can even at times repeat the words they said and make them know that you heard them speak. But hearing them isn't enough. We don't know what their meaning was. You don't know what their purpose was. You don't know what their words meant at their core. And that does no one any good.

Listening is different. Listening doesn't always necessarily mean responding. Listening doesn't always mean being able to recite verbatim what the person you are listening to says. Listening involves allowing the words to be processed by your brain, and understanding their essence. Listening is knowing what the person is saying to you, even if they don't know that themselves.

We spend so much of our time focused on responding to what someone is saying, making sure we get our 2 cents worth in, that we don't bother listening to what we are actually talking about. Stop for minute, listen to what someone is saying, and make sure you are making all the difference you can.

Thanks for listening.

The Casual Hello

What happened to the casual hello? The head nod? The simple wave? The good morning? Have we digressed so far as a species that we can't exchange the most rudimentary pleasantries with one another?

As I crossed paths with people at work today, I noticed that no one was saying hello. No one was acknowledging my presence. This persisted for the better part of the day when an unfortunate reality made itself known. I was just as guilty as the people I was walking past. I was the guy who couldn't take less than a second out of his day to say good morning.

A change had to happen or this was going to be an unpleasant day for everyone. So I took things upon myself to say hello to the people I saw. This set of actions, unfortunately, led me to another harsh truism. Even if I was willing to say hello, there were very few people willing to reciprocate. No one was willing to give a passing stranger the simples of courtesies.

How have we come to this, and more importantly, how do we fix it? The world is broken at the most basic of levels, and the only way we can fix it is one person at a time, one life at a time, one day at a time.

Let's all do our part.

The Importance of Unimportant Things

I have been very very busy of late. That being said, I've accomplished nothing of any importance in the last two or three weeks with the exception of sitting in the waiting room for my daughter to finish with her surgery. I have also taken to reading a few good books and thought a lot on exactly what is important in life.

I will spare you the tedious details of work and socially contracted committments from the last two weeks and merely sum up what these things have taught me. The importance of unimportant things. While work pays the bills and there is usually a sense of satisfaction gained from certain social commitments, neither of these things provide me an increased sense of self worth. That being said, playing board games with my step-son and making sure he only wins so much as to still enjoy it without winning so much that he thinks he should win all the time, sitting on the couch with my wife watching the same 4 seasons of The Big Bang Theory over and over again until we can quote them verbatim, and laying on the floor with my daughter while she watches the same "Mickey" movie over and over again, were all things that I did not get a chance to do these past few weeks. And these are the things that are truly important. These are the things that prove to me that living is more than just waking up every morning.

Sometimes, you don't realize just exactly what is important until you've had time to live your life without it. Unfortunately, sometimes when we begin living without something, we can't always get it back.

Enjoy what you have while you have it. And make sure you know just how important it is. Everything I had to do without the past few weeks, I was fortunate enough to get back. We aren't always as lucky.

Stand Up and Own Yourself

Today is National Down Syndrome Day. Which couldn't come at a better time given this particular piece of news. Based on this information, I've spent a little time reflecting on how we as people draw from our experiences, and how we take life's little curve balls. I've also reflected on how we own our lives, both the parts we can control and the parts that we can't. And that is going to be the subject of this blog.

All of the changes that occur are part of what make my life what it is. There are some changes that I love, more than my life itself at times. There are some changes that take place that make my life much more stressful and much more difficult too, and those things are all things that make up parts of my life too. I couldn't have some of the things I love if I didn't have the things that I don't. Regardless of how I feel about a given change in my life, a given aspect of my life, or a moment of my life, it is still mine. I still have to take responsibility for it, whether it is something i brought upon myself, or had thrust on me by fate.

Seeing a family sue over the birth of their child fills me with a lot of emotions. While I try to keep personal opinions relatively free of judgement of any kind, I do still believe that everybody gets to make their own choices in life. Even if at times they are the wrong choices, they are still the choices that they made. My only hope regarding these choices is that the people who make them can stand up to them and own them.

I'm not sure I'm making a lot of sense because of my sleep deprived state, but I want to stop my tirade for a moment and make sure that I get my overall point across. Life is going to be what it is going to be. And your life is going to be yours, nobody else's. You may not always like the life you have, and you may not always want your life to turn out the way it does, but at the end of the day, your life is yours. You have to own it. And standing up for your life, and allowing yourselves to be brought to account for your actions is the only way to make sure you are living and not just going through the motions.

KONY 2012

I very rarely come on here and take up a lot of anyone's time. Unfortunately, there are some things that come up that must be shared. That we as a people, as a human race, need to know that can't be read in just a few minutes. This is one of those things. Please take the time to watch this video if you haven't. We need to stop this now and make sure the world is rid of this type of thing forever.

"Individually we are a single drop. Together we are an ocean." Let's go out together and make this a thing of the past.