Lots of unexplainable, inexcusable and downright tragic things have happened in the past seven months. Mass shootings, riots in the streets, unwarranted violence amongst others have tarnished 2016 already. Emotions run high and people say lots of things, mostly out of that emotion, which leads to many unintentional offensive comments that bring up more arguments. Facts get misconstrued by the media and hearsay, leading people to think certain ways, thus creating more arguments. I mean, just look at social media once an hour. You’ll see someone else’s opinion posted or more videos trying to give an angle and opinions on current events.

Instead of trying forcing yet another opinion about everything that has happened, I think what we need is a reminder of how love and kindness are the most important and influential emotions that can lead to true healing from these awful things. Showing forgiveness, sympathy and empathy towards everyone surrounding these issues will help create real change. Although it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be angry or outraged by the incidents, using only these emotions when searching for a place of growth will send people down a path of destruction. We need compassion and we need to open our hearts and minds towards each other.

We have to have compassion towards each other and our causes. To completely dismiss the Black Lives Matter movement is a mistake, but so is praising the deaths of the Dallas police officers. Yes, all lives matter.This includes black, blue, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, Indian, European, Middle Eastern, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and every other kind of nationality, culture, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and what-have-you. Pretty sure that’s part of the point the BLM movement is trying to make, but that’s another article for another day.

We have to be able to see each other’s sides and find a place of common ground to rebuild our society. Obviously, there are things wrong with the way this country is going. Everyone can see that. Loving each other and accepting ideas from all people will be what brings us together as a nation. Love, kindness, gentleness and peace are what will make things start to be better. We all want the same thing: to live freely in pursuit of happiness without fear of other people. I think most of us realize this, but we have to work together and we have to be humble about our own ideas. We need to be willing to hear other perspectives and actually take them into consideration.

No more fighting; no more innocent lives lost; no more hearsay; no more ignorance; no more turning a blind eye to events; no more generalizations of those who are different than us; it is time we start recreating the American society into the country of truly free citizens and making the country better than we have been before. Honestly, this should have been happening a long time ago back when things started getting out of hand with violence. It starts with you and me. We have to make changes in our personal lives and demand changes on a national level to make our cities safer for all citizens and create the country of opportunity that we so desperately need. We are all humans and we all deserve to live freely. We have to do better for each other.