Got some hope to share?

[Jo_Castle]

I've been hearing the news, and looking around at some nasty things happening in my community and I'm just tired of it all. People are getting hurt, they're dying, and we all know and yet there isn't anything I can do about.

 

We have rapists and racist/sexist/homophobic/ect graffiti artists running about, and yet my friend might get expelled for self plagiarism. I'll be spending the weekend with my conservative family, after spending last weekend with my other conservative family, and I do love them but I'm not sure how long I keep up an agreeable front.

 

I'm usually the one looking on the bright side and giving out hope, but I'm just so tired. Just this once I thought I'd reach out for some help. I'll take any advise you can give.  

[Ousel]

Sadly I think tired is the feeling we all share, especially when we don't feel safe enough to be authentic around conservative family. Being able to challenge their world view just by being ourselves, that's how things change, right? Unless of course you're like me, and don't have the means to risk the chance of getting disowned. I'm working hard to change that. Someday I'll be in a better place and I'll be able to have those hard conversations. I'll be able to come out of the margins. It will be up to them. Their choices will be reject me, denial, or change. I'd really like to see big changes in our world, and I know it will only happen in small pieces. 

[WinterWanderer]

When I'm feeling hopeless, happy Reddit subs can be a great bandaid. r/humansbeingbros is a good one.

 

I think we are all just living life from one day to the next, hoping things eventually get better. 

 

I will tell you that I recently moved to a supposedly conservative place in the Midwest... And I've found a lot more progressive people here than I expected! It's been very refreshing to meet people who want to help change society for the better. (I'm really more of a centrist, but it's nice to find people who share some common goals and values.)

 

It might help you to look into local organizations, such as human rights organizations. You could just see what they're working on, and/or get involved if you wish. Those might inspire you

 

Just keep trying your best, in this crazy world that we live in.

[uhtred]

The news media likes to focus on the worst things, because they sell - but in many ways the world has become a much better place over the last 75 years, and continuing. 

 

Major wars are almost gone.   There are still "small" wars, but not the vast horrors of the world wars, and the threat of an apocalyptic WW3 has greatly decreased since I was young.

 

Many parts of the world are far better places to live.  The USSR really was miserable - and is gone.  Living conditions in China are far better than in the past - there were times when millions of people starved.

 

Many major diseases are in decline,  malaria, small pox etc. 

 

The rights of women are far better than they were 50 or even 30 years. ago. . When my wife went to college she had a professor tell her that he was wasting his time teaching here engineering because women never became engineers.   That was not unusual even 35 years ago.

 

 

There are still lots of problems but overall I think the world is on average a much better place than it was in decades past. 

 

[what the face]

I believe when we move away from being , as you write "the bright side and giving out hope"

it IS tiring,

and dark.

It's too easy to fall off the edge of caring , and to slide into that place of the broken:  heart, mind, spirit or ?.  

In that place I try to remember the heart/mind /spirit/? can heal

even transform out of the suffering.

 

To quote  J. Halifax on impermanence   "If the present moment is not a pleasant one, we (can) remember it will shift, and we can ask:

What can I learn here?"

 

 

[Skycaptain]

https://youtu.be/yuaVSoSKW2Q