I’ve been reading a lot of news this morning.

One reason I tend to avoid most news is because it’s depressing. Why is it that what constitutes “news” is negative? Hatred, murder, violence, destruction, corruption, lying, scandal. Granted sometimes life is that way, but there’s an overwhelming focus on such matters in “news”. It’s a major reason I avoid 24-hour news channels because all they contain is various idiots spouting off their opinions as fact. They drive so much of the tension today. Turn off the TV and go outside. It paints a picture of a horrible world where everyone is a predator, everyone is evil, no one can be trusted. We begin to believe it and turn those lies into truth, or at least affect things enough such that we behave in that manner.

But if there’s one thing humans are good at, it’s destruction, especially self-destruction. It’s easy to destroy, it’s difficult to create. It’s easy to listen to rumor, it’s hard to find fact and truth. We don’t like difficult things.

*sigh*

I then ponder much of the negative stuff going on. I begin to wonder how much of this would be an issue of people abided by a few things:

Be responsible for yourself.

Treat others as you want to be treated. (Yes, The Golden Rule isn’t perfect, but understand the spirit).

Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. (Don’t tread on me.) You can live your life as you wish, I can live my life as I wish. We may find each other’s lives and choices repulsive, but so long as we’re not infringing upon the other’s ability to life their life as they wish, you can live out your repulsive life while I live out my repulsive life.

Realize that there are other people in this world and those other people may have values, morals, and beliefs radically different from you. They may make choices in life that you don’t like. But realize, you look just the same to them as they do to you. Would you want them telling you your values, morals, and beliefs are horrible and should be banned? This gets back to treating others as you’d want to be treated.

Respect is something to be earned, and that also means it’s something that can be lost. Behave accordingly because respect is measured through the eyes of others.

Beware the slippery slope, even if at the start it seems like you’ll be gaining something good.

Have balance in life. Moderation (nothing in excess).

It kinda harkens back to that “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” stuff.

It was that this country was founded upon such notions (look at why the first Europeans came to this land). But it seems we’ve forgotten it.

But we can get it back. It just starts with each one of us, deciding to live our lives that way and then doing so each and every day. It will be a struggle, most people won’t understand, but I believe it will be worth it in the end.

Or am I just being too much of an optimist? too much of an idealist? Are we just doomed from the get-go?