As a youth, I wanted to change the world. More accurately, I wanted to fix it to my desired state, and be the glorious hero. On my quest, I acknowledged the failures of our world, developed the ego required to know what’s best for others, and the nurtured the arrogance that I could change people to my will. Instead of making the world a better place I cultivated resentment, disappointment, and fatigue. Through this process, I discovered many inadequacies with the goal of changing the world.

In the process of licking my wounds, I discovered meditation. Deep down I still had a strong belief that the world was full of failures that needed to be fixed, and I was hoping to find the answers in my protected meditation bubble. More honestly, I hoped that by meditating, and supporting the meditation organization, that meditation would fix the world. While meditation encouraged me to accept myself and the people around me as they are, I’ve still been looking for the solution to the worlds problems, until it clicked. There’s nothing wrong with the world. There’s nothing right with the world. The world just is. The reality of this moment is simply the reality of this moment, and I can either accept it or reject it.

But what are we supposed to do if we’re not trying to fix, change, and solve the world’s problems? The truth is, I have no control over the world. I often don’t even have control over myself. So I’m left with this choice of accepting this reality or rejecting it. That’s all I can do. If you take the challenging path of accepting reality as it is, you will discover an amazing power. This complete acceptance is call unconditional love, and unconditional love is inspiring. When loved, people become motivated to grow, heal, help, and accept. I’m not changing anyone, but by accepting individuals for the beautiful beings that they are, they can be inspired to accept and love themselves. This will naturally dissolve existing impurities while cultivating positive qualities.

Meditation isn’t going to change the world, but it can help people accept and love themselves and the world around them. This unconditional love will help us grow as individuals, and as a community. What we are today is amazing, and tomorrow we can become something even better. Time to meditate.