World We Dare To Imagine- Part 1

When I was pledging my fraternity, one of the tasks assigned to my pledge class was to collectively come up a with a word that symbolizes our class and our commitment to making the world a better place. We narrowed our options down to "passion" and "compassion"- but after this, reached a stalemate on which word we would select as our final choice to submit to our pledgemaster. The reason for this was because proponents of the word "passion" firmly believed that passion leads to great things which in turn leads to the world becoming a better place, while proponents of the word "compassion" argued that it was only through showing "compassion" for others that the world could become a better place.

In the end, we couldn't reach a solution, and so we decided to combine the two words into [com]passion- showing that while you need to be passionate about saving the world and/or making it into a better place, displaying compassion for your fellow inhabitants of the world is equally as important in ensuring that the dream becomes a reality.

As such, I really do think the first step into making the world a better place is through [com]passion- not through words, but through actions and intent. For starters, I think that "making a world a better place" where "all men are created equal" is a very generic goal that has multiple ways of being accomplished- with the majority of them being extremely difficult and almost impossible to fully implement due to the nature of the world and the humans that occupy it. This is where the "passion" aspect of [com]passion plays in: I think that if we focus on one or two ways or movements dedicated to societal equality that we are passionate about, the effect will be greater than if we focused on multiple ways to heal the world that we have no strong feelings about. Some of the most effective campaigns for equality in today's society- the Black Lives Matter movement for racial equality, the #MeToo and #ImWithHer movement for gender equality, and many more were all started and joined by people who were deeply passionate about the cause and chose to dedicate their life to furthering and expanding the cause to more people, in turn creating a social wave that broke political, societal, and economical barriers and created legislation that will help many future generations to come.

With the "compassion" aspect of ]com]passion, I think that another way that we can create equality is through listening to others, and taking in different perspectives and opinions not with aggression but through trying to understand the intent and point of view that the other person may be coming from. It's important that we stop trying to view the world in black and white but rather in shades of grey- and be more open and receptive to fully listening to our fellow humans. In my (limited) experience working with social movements and observing social trends both online and in real life, I've found that an environment for change is more easily fostered when both sides are willing to listen to each others ideas and grow from each other, instead of going on the offense and attacking immediately without listening. Change is only effective when it is wanted, not forced- and through compassion, this can be made possible!