As children we played outside, rode our bikes around the neighborhood without fear, played in the woods with safety, and spent hours in school studying instead of worrying about being shot by another student.
As a young woman, I spend countless hours in the California forest with only my cat, Sesame, for company. And I felt completely safe to do so. Now, I wonder sometimes if I’m safe at the grocery store.
Today’s world is different. I don’t know if it’s really more dangerous today or if it seems more dangerous because we hear about all the tragedies with the greater news coverage and social media.
Either way, the world isn’t always safe. But we can change it. We can create a safer world for ourselves and for the children growing up.
Here are 10 things each of us can do starting today:
- Stop supporting movies and TV shows that glorify and perpetuate violence. We take in the violence we see, and with surround sound and big screens, we take in the violence at deeper and more destructive levels.
- Deal constructively with your own anger. Anger energy destroys if not dealt with constructively. Instead of stuffing your anger until it comes out in a rage, deal with angry feelings by recognizing them and voicing them effectively. If you can’t deal with anger constructively, get help.
- Exchange living in fear with living in love. Fear is contagious and so is love.
- Don’t let children play violent video games and don’t play them yourself. For children especially it’s often hard to discern where a game ends and life begins. There are enough scaries hidden under the bed. Don’t add more.
- Reach out to others, especially if you notice a person is lonely or depressed, or you notice a young person is being bullied. If you do not feel safe reaching out, then don’t, but if you can, do.
- Report to authorities—and teach your children to report—any suspicious activity you see or suspicious posts on social media. If the authorities don’t take you seriously, make the report again until they do. You can also report to another agency. Suspicious activity does not mean to report a person because their skin is a different color than yours or because you don’t like them or because they speak with an accent. Suspicious activity is, for example, someone posting on social media how they are going to get even, and they have a gun.
- Stand up for peace. Attend peaceful rallies.
- If you own a gun, look at why you know you are able to take another life. Guns have one purpose—to kill. If you have a gun, you must know you are capable of killing another human being. If there are young people in your house, lock up those guns and do not give them the key.
- Speak up. On social media or in person, when you hear/read someone spouting hate propaganda, speak up/write. Use facts and truth to back your argument, and of course, speak up/write in an assertive and respectful manner.
- Donate to causes and politicians that support laws that make all of us safer.
Violence is epidemic in the US, and it’s up to each and every one of us to make a choice. Are we adding to the violence or are we doing our best to add peace to the world? It’s our choice. It depends on what kind of world we want to live in and create for our children.