Do you ever feel like we live in one big soap opera anymore?  Conspiracy, affairs, lack of ethics, everyone fighting and no one can work with anyone.  Everyone is  out for themselves, nobody helps anyone anymore, everything is political.  All the people in the south are crazy conservative rednecks, everyone in the northeast is unscrupulous, the west coast is all of bunch of crazy liberals and the midwest is, well non-existent and out of touch.  It’s easy to believe that this country is going to hell in a hand basket because everyone is crazy except you, right?  Well, I’m figuring out that as I visit around the country and hang out with people of all different persuasions, we have a lot more in common than not and maybe things have been exaggerated just a bit.

Now, I don’t mean to be Suzy Sunshine here, and I know I live in the Heartland, emphasis on the “heart”, but I have yet to go somewhere and meet someone who is just a horrible person.  I’m not saying I always agree with people, but usually the things that motivate us as human beings are universal – love, fear, anger, happiness.  We just act and react based on the environment we were raised in or exposed to.  I just don’t believe that the people in this country are as bad as we’ve been painted.  What I have seen are people who are kind, who think of others before themselves, who have a great work ethic and want things to be better.  We all want a better environment, better education, better health care, better government, better care for those who can’t help themselves.  And people are making a difference, one person, family or community at a time.

I have a friend in Georgia who is taking her passion for recycling into classrooms, social media and everywhere in between and is making a difference in her community.  She is politically aware and makes sure her voice as a citizen is heard.  I have another friend in Wisconsin who is active working on voter rights in her state.  I have friends in Nebraska and Kentucky who are passionate about animal rights, a friend in Michigan passionate about social justice and yet another friend in New York who believes in and teaches others how to unlock their passions and learn to be their true selves.

I have friends across the country who passionately advocate for music education as an essential part of educating the whole child.  I have friends who use their own money to help children in need, and friends who do small things like make special bags for foster children so they feel they have something of their own.

I’m watching communities from other states delivering hay, bale by huge bale to farmers affected by the floods in our region, giving up a little of their own to help others.  I’m watching people give their time, talents and money to help those who have lost everything during this natural disaster.

I’ve made it a point to only focus on positive stories lately, reading about the selflessness of Americans all over the country, people who are quietly doing things for others.  Yes, I get there are bad things happening out there but I wonder sometimes if we’re just focusing so much on them that we’re missing the beautiful things happening at the same time.

At the same time there are evil things happening in certain churches there many things happening in most churches that are good and kind and selfless.  At the same time there is ego and narcissism happening in government, there are people serving for little or nothing to make their communities a better place.  At the same time you hear about some teacher who has made a terrible error in judgement, there are thousands more who give of themselves every day for the love of children.  There is much good in the world, all quietly fighting the evil as best they can.  Unfortunately, if evil can convince you that there is so much evil in the world that there is nothing you can do, it has won.  Based on the great people I keep meeting, I choose to believe that there is more good than bad, we’re just not hearing about it.

So how about opening our eyes to see how much good there is around us.  I’m not saying ignore the bad, but instead of giving in, how about working to do something about it?  It doesn’t have to be huge, just an encouraging word to someone, a few dollars to help someone, a few hours to lend a hand.  Our good, multiplied many times can make a difference and throw a light on the shadows of all the bad in the world.