For Good or Against Bad?

I think we can all agree that the state of the world today could be a little better. Everywhere you turn is another negative news report. Whether it’s politics, violence, intolerance, environmental catastrophe, or any number of troubling situations around the planet, the media doesn’t provide us with a very positive outlook!

The dramatization of all this bad news makes it easy to get pulled in and become highly reactive. It’s as if an invisible force is activating our primitive fight or flight response, creating a strong impulse to do something. For some it might be typing an angry Facebook post, for others it’s joining a protest march, and of course for many it’s doing nothing. But if we really do want to change things for the better, what’s the best way forward?

Let’s look at our instinctive reaction to fight, or similarly to resist. If we simply look at the laws of physics, we know that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. When you push against an object, like a wall for example, it is actually pushing back with equal force. So resisting things in the physical world takes a lot of energy and isn’t the most effective way to get to where you want to go.

What about the non-physical world? Is it the same to resist an idea? Does it push back? This is where things might seem to get a little strange, but bear with me. First of all what is the physical world made of? Matter, right? What is matter made of? Atoms, right? And here’s the crazy part – the interior of the atom is 99.99999% empty space! So that means matter is pretty much just empty space. What?!

Ok, so it’s more than that. It’s actually energy. EVERYTHING is energy. The reason things seem solid is because of the rate of their vibration. So what is physical and what is non-physical? You guessed it – it’s all just energy. What’s the difference between a chair and a thought or idea? Their rate of vibration! Now getting back to my question about resisting an idea, does it also “push” back? Yes – energetically speaking. Have you ever heard the phrase “What you resist persists”? It’s the law of physics at work – with everything.

Hopefully I have not lost you, and I have been mildly successful at making a case for the ineffectiveness of resistance. But don’t give me credit for this idea. There are some pretty great people out there that believed this long before my time. Perhaps one of the first was Lao Tzu who lived about 2,500 years ago in ancient China. His philosophy of the “middle way” is practiced widely today, known as Taoism. A more recent example who I quote often is Martin Luther King, Jr. My favorite quote of his is, “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

So if not resist, then what? How do we change anything? Here’s where another great human being can be an example for us today. He said, “If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.” If you don’t recognize the quote, it’s because it’s been edited and overly simplified to “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Ah yes, Gandhi!

All of these great peacemakers and agents of social change had this in common: they understood that fighting against what we don’t want isn’t very effective. Instead, we must focus our energies into creating what we do want by exemplifying that quality in ourselves. If we want peace in the world, be more peaceful. If we want more love in the world, be more loving!

So there you have it. The core belief at Love Has a Home, Inc. boils down to what Gandhi never said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”

By Bill Donaldson