"What does the World need more of?"

Tricked you...this post isn't about puppies.

I've decided to branch out some more and find another YouTube video to which I can respond(I'm kind of a YouTube addict but that's a post for another day) and today on the chopping board is this video from SoulPancake which is produced by Mr. Rainn Wilson.

The Soul Pancake crew went out onto the streets and asked passerby what they thought the world needed more of and the answers ranged from better teachers to lilypads to humility. Personally I was surprised at the breadth of answers, I was expecting a lot of "Love" and "Happiness" type answers... so, good on them.  You have exceeded my expectations, SP.

There are a few things that I wish we had more of in the world. I actually have a longer list but at this moment, these are the ones that are jumping out the most. My first instinct was to just say that we need more kindness in the world towards one another. However, as I thought about it more I realized that there needs to be a substance behind kindness. Yes, it would be nice to have people be more courteous in general but that seems rather surface. The two elements that I think would ultimately increase kindness in a way that matters are:

1) Empathy: I think that having more empathy in the world would solve a lot of problems. To be able to put yourself in the shoes of another more easily and more often would lead to a much more understanding world in my opinion. With everything going on in the news currently, I feel like a deeper understanding and consideration for your fellow human beings is incredibly important. It has been made abundantly clear from recent events and articles that I've read that a lot of people still don't quite understand people of different opinions, beliefs, ethnicities, races, gender. People are prejudiced either consciously or unconsciously and that results in people witholding a respect that should be an inherent human right. The fact that people are different doesn't mean that you are wrong but it also doesn't mean that other people are wrong either. Everyone that you see has their own battles and history and the more empathetic we can be, the more thoughtful this world would be.

2) Forgiveness: I mean this mainly in the sense that people can let things go and find peace with things. One of the things that I've learned in my time on Earth so far is that things do not always go as planned. Now that my peers and I are starting to get beyond college, that has incredibly real and scary implications. People don't get their dream jobs, or into their dream schools or for some reason things really just don't work out. In these situations, the blame goes to two places.

The first option is that you can blame yourself and think you're not worthy of being successful, that you weren't good enough and that you may never be good enough. More often than not though, people are blaming themselves for having emotions and not being a robot who is perfect at everything on the first try. In this case, I think people should have more forgiveness for themselves and realize that it's okay to have moments(or even longer periods) of human weakness because everyone is struggling.

The second option is that people might blame the cosmic/karmic forces of the universe: "I have been placed in a bad situation". Sometimes, this really is the case and it sucks. There really was nothing that you could have done to change it and while it may help to feel angry for awhile, I think it is worth "forgiving" the universe for not being ideal conditions for you to do whatever it is you wanted to do.

Lastly, we should also have more cream puffs.....because cream puffs.