I realize it seems that so much is happening right now. We’re overwhelmed with countless opportunities for positive change. From the environment to how we treat each other and other forms of life, from rampant political corruption and global financial meltdowns to a seeming decline in social, decent, and honorable values, we are being forced to honestly examine issues that concern humanity’s future and well-being.

You and I can see the seemingly unending stream of negativity and conclude that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. You and I can also expend our precious life-energy assigning blame, arguing the issues, shunning accountability, jockeying for power, maintaining the status quo, dreading the end of the world, or focusing on fear and misery.

Or, we can choose to be part of the ever-growing, worldwide collective of people who grasp this moment in time as their best chance to positively and peacefully address challenging issues that will result in the evolution of our individual and shared consciousness. We stop waiting, arguing, and pointing the finger of blame outward. We courageously and responsibly spend our energy by being an active part of the solution to clean up our messes and protect our Earth home and all who inhabit it. We openly and candidly challenge ourselves to change “business as usual” in all aspects of life. We assume personal liability for doing what we can each day to be a catalyst of change and raise positivism from what appears, on the surface, to be a sea of negativity.

You and I can begin to manifest the change we desire by finding an area of interest that makes our heart sing, where our skills are a good fit for making a constructive contribution. Join those expending energy by honestly evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of our political and judicial systems. Become personally involved at the local level to ensure the best education for all children, to help reduce illiteracy, and equip them to deal with the issues we are leaving to their attention. Join a local environmental group and clean up our parks, cities, rivers, lakes, and streams. Assist in educating your community about recycling. Work with local animal shelters to bring the benefits of spaying, neutering, and adoption to our cities. Get involved to end hunger and homelessness. Serve as a mentor to an “at risk” child.

At home, remain aware of what you allow into your mind and heart as entertainment. Search out programming that inspires your intellect and supports the positive values you desire to see in yourself, your children, and our society. Send television and movie decision-makers incentives to develop positive, inspirational, and intelligent programming by turning off anything that insults your intellect or offends your values.

Seek impeccable reporting from news organizations you consult. Research the facts regarding current issues, rather than accepting editorial opinion and hearsay as truth. The time has come to use our brain.

Remember that beyond what advertisers want you to believe about what they think you want from life, the most valuable things are having family and friends, great relationships, enough to eat, a roof over your head, a healthy body, clean water, clean air, a healthy planet, healthy pets, and, foremost, living from the heart. These values are shared by countless people throughout the world. So, encourage others to live in alignment with what is truly important by no longer allowing media and advertisers to tell you what is valuable.

Scrutinize the organizations you entrust to foster your spirituality. Have the courage to question and move away from any organization or doctrine that perpetuates abuse, control, and fear or assigns responsibility for self-centered situations to something outside of you. Separate yourself from and stop supporting anybody whose personal agenda incites hate, negativity, blame, control, discrimination, ridicule, or rationalizations of those behaviors.

We are at a pivotal point in our development. The time has come to grow more connected to our wise, helpful, and intuitive heart. This is the part of us with the patience, discernment, and innovation necessary to help us have the best relationship with others, avoid problems, make life easier, and find the best solutions to what we face.

To motivate this part of us, we need to step away from the familiar and into the vast unknown of limitless positive possibility within our heart. We are not here to wonder what the future may hold. We are here to create the future we want, moment by moment, day by day. We have the ability to be the positive change agent we desire. We stop apathetically waiting for someone else to go first. There are no other people to go first. We are it. The time has come for us to become involved.

Our world is magnificently beautiful. Without a healthy Earth, we do not exist. It is not responsible to wait for some body of “knowledgeable people” to fix what is wrong with our planet. You and I must be the ones to take action.

There is no government, policy, or law that can effect greater change than you and I doing our part each day. Let’s promise one another to care about the impact each of our personal actions has on Mother Earth. Let’s join forces and clean up what we can of our planet. Together we will make a huge difference. You and I are the answer!

Let’s begin by viewing challenges as opportunities to make positive changes. Let’s agree there is nothing gained by continuing to view each other and what we individually and collectively face through a negative perspective. Let’s accept there is no one responsible for coming to our rescue. Let’s stop the self-deception that any group or governmental body operates on the enlightened level necessary to solve our problems for us.

We are capable of cleaning up our messes. We are best qualified to educate our children, stop overpopulating the planet, stop overfishing our oceans, end a dependency on environmentally destructive fuels, and accomplish any of the other items on our universal to-do list. Let us have faith that when the majority of us courageously lead the way in demanding a higher standard of responsibility from ourselves, the desire to rise to the higher standard will become prevalent.

You and I do have something vital to offer. We do have power to initiate positive change. The small actions we take daily do make a difference and will bring about the change we all desire.

We are the solution!