Peace, goodwill; listening, kindness; generosity, respect, safety, and mercy, all these wonderful community builders, things that make life around us richer and more trustworthy and enjoyable, begin with you and me.
They are inside jobs.
We cannot expect the world to deliver to us that which we are not willing to offer.
It is irrational to want something in the broader community that you and I are not willing to pursue first within ourselves.
If you want to live in a generous world, be generous.
If you want to live and know mercy and kindness, express both to all whom you know.
Show what is possible in your every encounter.
If I am harboring anger and resentment toward another how can I wish for a world where people are kind and forgiving? I can hope and hope for a kind, forgiving world, but I am making it impossible while at the same time spreading the opposite of what I hope for.
I see this time and again, and sadly, within myself within the contradictions I know that live within me.
Then, when I confront myself with the truth of which I am fully aware, and face these contradictions within myself and am on occasion successful in doing so, the result is sheer joy.
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