As I scroll down through Facebook updates, I see one update of a lady who was there during that horrific night in France. After recounting the specifics of what had happened during the concert, she goes on with these words. Her words got to me. “There last thoughts were not on the animals who caused all this. It was thinking of the people they loved… Last night, the lives of many were forever changed and it is up to us to be better people, to live lives that the innocent victims of this tragedy dreamt about but sadly will now never be able to fulfill. – Isobel Bowdery”
I have not been in any situation like that and I couldn’t imagine what she had gone through. I doubt anyone of us would want to be in her situation, but I admire her for exposing what we should be thinking of right now. Yes, we may wonder about what is happening to this world — why is there so much violence, violence that even involves killing innocent people. Our hearts may even be filled with anger for those who did this. We may blame a lot of people for all of these things happening, but I think what this should be is more of a wake up call.
A wake up call for us to be better people.
Better does not necessarily mean that you need to change the world. Better does not mean running for office or seeking for a government position. Better does not mean inventing a life-changing surgery that may change the medical industry (sorry, I watch too much Grey’s Anatomy and Code Black downloads). It doesn’t even mean building a huge conglomerate, let alone a company.
Better, for me, just means being in love — in love with life, in love with living. Better means waking up everyday, loving ourselves and loving how living gives us the opportunity to enjoy and grow. Better means seeing yourself as valuable and capable of making a difference in this world, no matter how big or how small. Better means living with integrity, conviction, kindness and faith. It means seeing and upholding what is fair and just. It means loving yourself so that you can love others more. It means being kind to people and respecting what they believe in even if you don’t necessarily agree with them.
Better means that we just don’t thrive with people in our community, but we mingle and interact. We build relationships — relationships that strengthen the main core of our existence which is to love. We help each other achieve and grow, learn and love. We help them move on from past hurt, heartaches, hang-ups, depression, bullying and other negativity that they may have experienced. We help them achieve their fullest potential, by actively helping them out or by just being there as a friend.
Better means realizing that minute things that we can do will impact society in a big way if we constantly do it. We need to give more importance to living intentionally. If ever something tragic happens (I sincerely hope it doesn’t happen to any of us), we need to be able to say that we have lived and loved. We have done everything that we could have done with this precious life. We have been good people and we lived a good life.
