Life comprises light and shade and greyer stuff in between. We need this contrast for how would we recognise joy without experiencing the opposite. And yet contrast has become something far more challenging.
We can see this in conventional media with often vastly different and usually negative takes on the same story, and in the growth of media showcasing harder views. Without careful and independent thought we can find ourselves mindlessly standing strongly with or against what’s been expressed. Anyone who doesn’t agree can be seen as other and often less than.
We see the challenge increasingly in social media where freedom of expression has become freedom to divide. And we see it among those who should know better – political leaders on the global stage who seem to spend more time demonising others, dividing and polarising opinion.
Surely, ultimately, we all want a better world for all – one we can inhabit and one which promises better for the generations to come.
So, our service is to set our own intentions at a higher, greater good level, formed out of deep reflection on the world we want to create. That means an intention to carefully sift and synthesise the information that comes at us, to weigh perspectives and find our own based on what’s in our heart.
It means setting an intention each day to live through the heart, extending love and compassion to all living things. In doing so we’ll be moving into right relationship with our world and seeing the power of difference not other.