Have you ever stared at your bedroom ceiling in the middle of the night thinking, “I want to change the world … I want to make some kind of difference to this planet, but I have NO IDEA how”?
Perhaps you’ve searched far and wide for a way you can feel as though you are doing enough, being enough, and making enough meaningful change. Perhaps you’ve even read books about social change, or studied courses in tertiary institutions about how to make society a better place to live.
But in the end, nothing feels enough.
Have you ever dealt with this?
With all of the terror, violence, greed, exploitation, pollution and annihilation wreaking havoc in our world, it’s no wonder that most of us feel minuscule and completely powerless in the face of such horror. How can WE as singular, average, and commonplace people possibly start a revolution? How can we possibly live our lives full-well knowing that we are doing our very best and benefiting the world in the largest way possible?
Like you, I am ordinary and feel tiny in the face of such overwhelming challenges. I’m not particularly strong, I rarely have energy, I’m not good at networking or socializing, and I have premature hearing loss in both ears. However, what I DO have is willpower, and this has been more valuable than any other quality in my life. Why? Because I may not be the strongest, most capable, most charming, most extraordinary person in the world, but I do have passion – and that is all that counts when it comes to starting a revolution.
Do you have passion? Do you have willpower? Because if you do, you are a natural-born revolutionary; you are a god-given trail-blazer.
I Want to Change the World, but I’m Only Ordinary – How?
I want to change the world. I always have ever since I stepped out of the innocent haze of childhood. And although I’m ordinary, I know that that’s not an excuse to give up and play the mindless games of a society that is built on fear, ego, ignorance and control.
Will you join me on this quest to form a more wise, loving and peaceful world? Will you give up your stories of what you “should” be like and “have to do” and open up to what you really can achieve? Will you let go of your concepts of what a revolutionary “must look like,” your unrealistic self-expectations, and your desire to find your self-worth in your outer success, and truly create change?
If so, keep reading:
1. Make a serious conscious effort to develop empathy for others.
Sol once said to me, “Change can never come, has never come, and will never come, from trying to influence an external system.” Why? Because the only real form of change comes from within. How can you, from a place of hatred and emotional instability, teach love and peace? It just doesn’t work, and it never ever will. That is why as hard as we try to force outer change, we only create ripples on the surface of the much larger lake of global pain.
This is why I prescribe empathy. In the emotional apothecary, empathy is the only emotion that truly helps us to understand and feel compassion for others. Empathy is the only emotion that allows us to truly forgive others, and therefore develop a deep conscious form of love. You absolutely can’t experience true compassion, forgiveness, or love for others unless you can first feel their pain and suffering.
Many people confuse empathy with pity. Empathy is not looking down on a person and feeling sorry for them, empathy is actually making the effort to understand why a person thinks, feels, believes, and behaves the way they do. The reality is that there is a huge empathetic deficit in our society: most of us are not empathetic beings, this is the reality. Finally, empathy is not just about putting yourself in the shoes of the less fortunate; empathy is about learning to deeply understand everyone in your life, including those you can’t stand being around and hate with a passion.
2. Learn to authentically love yourself.
If you want to change the world you need to learn how to love yourself. This is vital and absolutely imperative. How can you truly create any meaningful change if you continue to hate yourself, punish yourself, and act like your own worst enemy? As is so often said, you need to be the change. You need to embody the change that you wish to see, rather than demanding everything around you to change first. You can never force another person to change unless they are first willing to – but you CAN change yourself.
3. Support non-gmo, free range meat (or no meat), organic produce and sustainable living.
Support products, farming methods, and forms of living that nourish life, rather than destroy and abuse it. This might require you to change your habits or spend a few extra dollars, but at the end of the day you are truly helping to change the planet.
4. Buy recycled clothing, catch public transport and reduce your consumption of material goods.
The more you buy, consume, and throw away, the more you contribute to the pollution of this planet. Do you really need constant technological upgrades, or new furnishings every 6 months? And what about clothing? Do you constantly need to refresh your look (and contribute to child labor in sweat shops)? Try buying at the local thrift store instead, and help charity in the process.
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5. Be a couch-activist.
Using social media and the internet to enact change is a simple and accessible way of making a difference. Whenever there is a petition to sign, post to like, article to share about an important issue, get involved! Here is a good website to start. You could even volunteer to moderate a forum or facebook group that is dedicated to a meaningful topic you are interested in, e.g. animal rights, domestic abuse, yoga, etc. On the other hand, you could take the traditional route and join an organization such as the RSPCA/ASPCA, Greenpeace, WWF, HRC, IFAT, etc.
6. Do shadow work.
Ignorance and pain is spread from one generation to another due to unresolved core wounds. When we fail to come to terms with our darkness, with our cuts, with our own repressed thoughts, feelings and dreams, we become neurotic, angry, emotionally unstable, unfulfilled people. And we pass this on to our children. And our children pass their wounds onto their children. And so on and so forth. The only way we can break our world’s cycle of unconscious suffering and self-hatred is through the process of shadow work; through consciously exploring our pain, and releasing ourselves from the grip of our shadows. You can start here.
Leave a comment …
You might not think so, but leaving a comment is a good way of showing the world “I care about this topic!” This is a small but valuable way of creating the first ripples of change. So leave a comment below! Tell us how you create change in your quarters, and how you inspire others to do so.
Absolute Yes. I want to change the world. At first my mindset was that “Oh, I have to be super famous, I have to do this or that”, but I realize this isn’t true at all. Changing the world starts with changing yourself. You could work forever to change the mind of someone else, but whether or not they “change” is up to them, not you. I think people should be encouraged to start change on the inside. Once that is done, they can truly help and love others since they have helped and loved themselves.
Great advice, however, my question remains unanswered.. Can one change the world in a very direct active way(through media influence, or through business -> charities, schools, jobs..or maybe through politics/law.. or all of them together for that matter)?.. I feel the world is doomed because through pattern recognition you can clearly notice the world going downhill, and it’s faster and faster with little to no resistance. These basic things you’ve stated are good, but can we do more? Can we flip the script and change the world for real?
Thank you for this article Luna. I too want to change the world. It starts with me!
Nice article, thank you for your words. Thanks to remind our part of darkness…
I had a vision a couple weeks ago, that I should start a charity for poorer children in my homeland of Jamaica. I’ve practically been given all the information from my higher been, cause as I am researching I’m discovering that I already know these things. I get synchronised messages about current things I am going through. It’s pretty clear day in day out what my purpose is as it’s given me an instant passion for this particular purpose.
You know your path now Faith!
I lack the passion that you have. As i try to be a minimalist largely striving for simplicity and modesty ,my effects on my environment are almost always very very small, but i do have a strong need to keep my influence positive no matter how small it may be since i believe that it helps me in my quest for deeper levels of inner peace.
Thank you (again) for very good article, Luna. I have a question, could we practice empathy toward earth, nature, animal and plants? and how?
Empathy can only be fully developed through the practice of self-love. How can you authentically care for anything if you can’t care for yourself? That is the first step. All other steps fall into place thereafter.
Empathy can really help someone because of being able to share an experience with that person that is going thru the same difficult issue. Because of my addicted personality, I can understand, to the core the issue of addiction of another person, even if I don’t know them. So I try to talk to anybody I meet that is addicted to drugs or alcohol or anything else that is bringing them down. Not only are they comforted that I know what they are dealing with, but also I might be able to offer advise that might help them fight this disease. Also you don’t have to be a Doctor, minister or attorney to help people and brighten their day. There is a security guard at my wife’s clinic, which is a rather large clinic, and he will open the employee’s door for each and every employee that walks in to the clinic. He smiles at each one and wishes them a good morning. He makes minimum wage, probably drives a old car, doesn’t have much, but by his simple acts of kindness, brightens the day of so many people..To me, he has already started this revolution and has taught me one way to contribute and join the team….
Scott
That is beautiful Scott!
I think shadow work and the impact people have on each other is vastly underestimated.
My parents did not do it before having us, and it was passed on to all four children through abuse and neglect. My two oldest siblings are raising their own children in unconventional but safe homes, my older brother is in a very dark place I don’t know how to reach, and I’m just climbing out after well over 20 years of cleaning house.
What else could I have done during those years if I’d felt safe to love?
Yes Leigh, IT IS underestimated. Greatly underestimated. If we were to all explore our shadows, the world would paradoxically be much lighter and harmonious.
I feel all of us can join the revolution by being the kind of human beings we would love to see around us, ie being the change we crave. Thank you Aletheia for showing us the way by your courage!
I can’t change the world in a big way, so I try to be the best person I can be on a daily basis by simply having a good attitude, being positive, smiling, caring and being a kind person.
That is the best approach Una <3
I followed your link, Luna and got change.org to which I already subscribe. A lot of the petitions I have signed have actually been successful. If only one small change is achieved, it is a start. Thank you for this article.
Despite the good natured approach, the true enemy is not going to be defeated by eating the right foods and buying recycled clothing. In the real world you must take action to influence it, an object in motion stays in motion until said object acted upon by another force. The object is society, and you cannot influence it with such passive behavior, that is an obvious fact
The true enemy is ourselves Anthony. Change starts primarily from within primarily. As has been proven many times, fighting for external change is very superficial unless it is also accompanied by inner work.
Think of it another way. You can’t really save the world on your own by doing these things. But you can empower yourself, which can lead to influencing others, finding fellowship and strength in numbers, which can save the world.
Thank you for this guide!
Thank you Mary :)
I am studying Ayurveda, making changes, and sharing…..
Luna,
As you may know, I have made one significant, to me at least, effort to “change the world” with my work on promoting The Harmonic Concordance in the early years of the 21st Century. The three key components of that “movement” were prayers of Conscious Intention that, 1) humanity realize it’s Unity Consciousness (that we are ALL One, 2) that, individually, we acknowledge and accept our own Creator Consciousness and 3) that we consciously participate in a healing for our Beloved Mother Earth.
But that was then and this is now, and in THIS Now, I recognize that the best possible way to affect that change is to be that change within myself. After all, my Self is the only Being over which I actually have any control. So I, like both you and Sol are doing in your posts, have decided to develop a new website, http://www.thespiritualwiki.org, which will house a vast library of information pertaining to the quest for the spiritually meaning of life. I look forward to featuring more of your work there.
Namaste,
Johnny
Thank you Johnny, and I recommend that everyone reading this go and have a look at the blog. I appreciate the comment, thanks for reading!
I try to do all of the above, and also what Drea wrote. I thought about writing like you do, but there are already many people doing it very well. So instead, in my spare time, I have recently started making volunteer translations of subtitles for videos (interviews by Lilou Macé). Translating is really something I have always loved doing, so when I saw they needed translators, I thought ‘That’s it! That’s for me! This is something I can do’. It feels like part of my mission because I really enjoy myself doing it.
Hi Anne! well I know it’s not of my business but you know I write too about things I’m interested in on a site I created myself. I do not have too much time for it, but it is fun anyway. Let me tell you, if you feel like writing you should do it, I think everyone has something important and interesting to say, and it doesn’t matter how many people are doing it because if what you wrote helps one person, then it was worth the effort. That’s what I think :)
Congratulations for finding that special something Anne!
It happened to me few years back. Now I don’t really want to do it. I’m just gonna let it go, let it flow, I don’t think I have the willpower or passion. Maybe someday, I don’t know. But actually, I still can’t “deeply understand” what my passion is. Which means I don’t “deeply understand” myself. Well, I guess I’m having trouble with the deeply-understand thing
Why should you have to deeply understand what your passion is? Perhaps your true passion is simply existing with joy in the present moment? We all feel the need to search for happiness when in truth happiness can be found right now, without the story that we need to find it. I hope that makes sense.
It does make sense. Some people consider it is counterproductive by simply existing with joy. But I find it very fulfilling. Thise people are too demanding and I still can’t accept them
Sometimes simply giving someone a hug or smiling to random people on the street or the store can also make a huge difference in their lives, indeed in the world. Also listening to what other have to say and pay attention to their issues or current situation is a small way of changing someone’s life… indeed make an impact and change the world somehow. We may think this is too small for being important but the truth is the consequences of our actions go way beyong what we can imagine. Thanks for the article Luna, very inspiring as usual. :) namaste.
Yes! Smiling really can transform someone’s day. I remember a dark day in the past when I was walking in a parking lot. A stranger walked up to me and smiled as he passed — such a small action completely shocked me out of my self-pity! My entire day changed because of that one small action, which we perceive as small, but was actually very big.
thanx