Peace On Earth

I want to wish all my friends a very happy holiday season. I know some of you have suffered great loss this past year, or have had some personal crap go down, and for most of us life has a way of sometimes just raining on our parade. I am thinking of you these days and how important you are in my life, how lucky and grateful I am to know so many awesome people. Like I used to say a long time ago, we have the talent, we just need to learn how to put it to good use because by helping others we always help ourselves and that’s a pretty cool cycle to be riding on.

Here in Canada there is a renewed optimism across the land. Hope, not fear, is the new keyword and there are many signs that the rest of the world may be getting ready to abandon the madness that threatens to destroy life on this planet. There will be some tough times ahead but I refuse to believe we are incapable of turning this ship around. If you believe in the basic goodness of the vast majority of people then you can believe in the power of people to ultimately do the right thing. In 2016 we all need to show each other that we are willing to be tolerant of each other, that we appreciate what everyone brings to the table, and let kindness be the motivation for change.

Here’s a story I like to tell…

About 8 years ago I was exhausted and got on a packed city bus with about a 45 minute ride ahead of me. I was hoping to get a seat. Making my way through to the back I spotted an empty seat and moved towards it only to be almost knocked over by a woman who charged ahead and grabbed the seat. I got pretty angry and was just about to start telling her off when it occurred to me that I had no real idea of why she would do that, of what her story might be, and in a moment of strange revelation I decided that the best thing to do was to forgive the woman and just love everyone on the bus. Yes, love everyone, on the bus. I looked around and noticed how much I usually would just stereotype all these strangers into mostly  categories of indifference and non identification, and how there was no one from “my tribe” anywhere to be seen. And I looked at all these faces and I thought, “I love you.” And what had started out as the bus ride from hell turned into one of the most liberating experiences of my life!

This is not very easy to do, but you may want to try it. The tough part  is you have to apply this concept to everyone because it’s almost assured that there will be faces that that you will be very uncomfortable thinking of in a positive manner. It’s a test. It might work. It might not. But you have nothing to lose and much to gain. It’s about insight into yourself and how much courage you believe you actually have.

In 2016 I am going to imagine that I love every single person on the planet.

Not easy.

Extremely hard.

But it’s worth trying.

Peace.