“ The reward of goodness is nothing but goodness” -The Holy Quran -55:61

“Radiate boundless love towards the entire world,-above, below and across- unhindered, without ill will, without enmity” -Buddha

“But love your enemies and do good to them and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great and you will be children of the most high because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” -The Holy Bible -John 6:35

Imagine what would happen if our world viewed unconditional love as something as important as education or employment.

The thing about unconditional love is that it doesn’t see race, origin, past or present. Loving someone unconditionally means to love blindly, to forget about yourself and your priorities, to love with hope and understanding in any given situation.

The media directly tries to segregate us by showing us the faults of others or showing us how “different” other cultures are. This is all a ploy to make their wallets grow and to keep our eyes focused on something that doesn’t even really exist. We as humans are not born racist, we are not born into the fear of another race and we are certainly not born into thinking that the size of your paycheck depicts your self worth. Take the understanding and love of a child and place it into perspective. They have not been tainted by the worlds separated view of society. They care not for money, they do not understand war, they certainly do not discriminant against the difference of color in our skin. These are things that are learned. Racism is learned. Hate is learned. Fear is learned.

“The other day i was driving into a Walmart parking lot to run some errands and i spotted a man sitting in the shade of the parking lot across the way. My eyes lingered for a short amount of time and then i continued to pull into the parking lot and go on with my day. Exiting the Walmart my first instinct was to peer over and see if the man had moved and to my luck he was sitting in the same spot as before.

Being a 21 year old with minimum pay and living paycheck to paycheck doesn’t quite allow me to hand out money like I’d wish to. All i could offer was a few smokes and my time and love. I waved at him as he approached my car and handed him a few smokes and he thanked me and began to turn away. I quickly asked if i could join him for a smoke and the smile that spread across his face was the first reward I’d receive from this interaction.

I followed him across the parking lot to a small patch of shade and began to chat, at fist just small talk and then the conversation grew more meaningful. The mans name was Jesse Grant.

Jesse looked at me with such confusion at first that i had to ask him if he was alright. He said” Ive had people give me water or food or smokes but never has someone taken the time to sit with me.” My heart sank.

Over the next hour or so i spent time learning about what it was like to live in the 60’s as a teenager and how rad it was to see the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin play live. I learned how much a bus ticket was, i learned how many months and miles it took one pair of tennis shoes to give out. I learned that after many failed attempts to stop drinking Jesse had lost his family, his home and his job, yet throughout our entire conversation a frown never made its way to Jesse's hopeful face."

The point of me sharing this is to remind us what we are worth. Each human on this planet whether they’re the CEO of a company, the bus driver, the immigrant, the lawn mower, the burger flipper or the custodian is worth the SAME. They deserve the same amount of effort. They deserve the same amount of understanding and commitment. They deserve a chance to prove themselves regardless of their color or origin or the God they worship. Our country was built with he sweat and blood of immigrants. It is our responsibility to care for each and every sister and brother that we are given. Unconditional love has always been the answer.

We are being challenged in our day and age with the constant opportunity to make a decision, "Are we together or are we separate?" Our world leaders would like us to believe that the color of our skin and the size of our houses or the God we worship makes us intolerable or different from each other and that theres no possible way we could all live in harmony together. Our generation has the chance to prove them wrong. Lets show them that we care for the homeless man like we care for the CEO. We care for the Syrian refugee like we care for the pastor of our Christian church. Open your minds and your hearts and be brave enough to show the world unconditional love.

Let us start a chain reaction.

Let us change the world.

Let us be Unconditional.