Be the cliché you wish to hear...

I have learned that you can’t tell the ignorant that they are ignorant, and those with closed minds will never hear a contradictory word you speak. Any hope for dialogue is futile. You can only hope that they may see the truth when it is presented to them.
I have learned the hopeless despair that arises when I start to think about the problems in our country and our world, and their seeming insurmountable complexity. When I think about how each issue is so intricately intertwined with all the others, and to what great scale, I ask myself, “how can one person ever begin to make a difference?”

And then I learned something else.

Recently I have learned that change is happening in my own little circle. Minds are opening and ignorance is being replaced with the pursuit of understanding. Problems are being understood and solutions are being developed. The crazy thing is that some people attribute some of these advancements to my efforts to make a difference in my own life.

So, what have I learned? Sometimes a cliché or two can actually be fitting:

What we need is “a little less talk, and a lot more action!”

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”