We’ve heard it all before: “Open your eyes. Open your heart. The world needs you to change.” It’s too simple. It will never work. We’re too embedded in what we’ve convinced ourselves is the “real world.” We get up at the crack of dawn and commute to jobs where we work until our eyes bleed. Then we come home and feed our brains with scripts written by writers who are paid to keep your attention (which means shocking you senseless because you’ve grown desensitized to too much) in order to sell space to advertisers who make you believe that you need things you don’t. Then we shut off the lights and do it all over again the next day. And don’t say you don’t do it, because we all do. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

But maybe, just maybe, there’s still time. Teach your children compassion. Guide them to lives that are fulfilling. If you can’t because you’re too tainted, then let them go. Because there’s still a spark within them that believes the world can be a better place and that happiness isn’t about chasing the almighty dollar at the expense of love and peace and kindness. Then stand up, walk away from your television, open a window and shout to the universe that you’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore. Because that’s what it will take for you to change.

Only, you won’t. None of us will. It’s too risky. Besides, it’s damn comfortable living in the cellulite of America’s thighs. So down we go. Down. Down. Until we’re dust. And unfulfilled.

Change starts now. Or else it never will.

The world is on fire.

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Jim Mitchem

What People's Cars Say About Them
Sammy and the Oak Tree

Jim Mitchem

Writer. Father to daughters. Husband. Ad man. Raised by wolves. @jmitchem on twitter. First novel, Minor King, out now.

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