How com­mit­ted to chang­ing the world are you? Are you? Am I?

I have seen a lot of posts express­ing out­rage over one thing or another via social media lately, and it’s noth­ing new, peo­ple have been doing it for years now. But how many of these peo­ple do any­thing more than share, re-share, and comment?

I have been post­ing my fair share of dis­sent­ing opin­ions, I’ve com­mented plenty, and I’ve re-shared many dis­sent­ing opin­ions with which I agree. But what else have I done?

Noth­ing.

Noth­ing except try to make peo­ple aware of what’s hap­pen­ing, but I have yet to make any­thing hap­pen with my own actions, and that needs to change.

That needs to change.

There is so much more that needs to be done, so much more than one can do with arm­chair activism, that I can no longer rely solely on dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion as a way to par­tic­i­pate in effect­ing change.

We all know the world is on fire, it is burn­ing around us, and yet all many of us seem to do is talk about a need for buck­ets and hoses. How many of us are run­ning to fill buck­ets or charge hoses? How many of us are try­ing to put out the fire?

Big Busi­ness, Big Bank­ing, and Big Gov­ern­ment are sys­tem­at­i­cally destroy­ing our econ­omy, strip­ping us of our Rights, and threat­en­ing our way of life. The lifeblood of the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence, small busi­ness, has lit­tle chance of suc­ceed­ing as a result. We have lost count­less Amer­i­can jobs to mega-corporations export­ing work over­sees and import­ing prod­ucts man­u­fac­tured else­where. Bailout funds intended for the Amer­i­can infra­struc­ture, your tax dol­lars, are being handed over to banks and cor­po­rate enti­ties which paved the way for eco­nomic col­lapse by the very politi­cians that green lighted their activ­i­ties. And most of these mega-corporations skirt around pay­ing taxes with loop­hole after loop­hole after loophole.

Watch­ing my chil­dren grow­ing up in this world, a world that looks not at them as peo­ple but rather as profit poten­tial, I am forced to ask myself how I can sit here and cry out for change when it is my respon­si­bil­ity to be that change. How can I expect any­thing to get bet­ter for them, if I am unwill­ing to stand up and scream ENOUGH!!

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I do not want this for my chil­dren. I want them to grow up with the same hopes and dreams that I grew up with, but I want their dreams to have a chance of com­ing true. I want them to see a world with pos­si­bil­i­ties, not a world with inher­ent dan­gers, a world with road­blocks and bar­ri­ers and cor­dons. I want them to enjoy Life, Lib­erty, and the Pur­suit of Happiness.

So from this moment forth, I will be look­ing for ways I can become more directly involved in effect­ing change, being change. I will under­take this jour­ney with the hope of giv­ing my chil­dren, your chil­dren, the chance to live in a bet­ter world than this.

Will you come with me?

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