Making The World a Better Place Begins with Yourself
Make yourself better, make the world better.
Less than a week into the new year, and already the madness has been seemingly turned up to 11. Really? Bad news on various fronts is how we start 2026?
Here’s the biggest kicker about it: There’s nothing you and I can do. You and I can’t change bad decisions, violations of the Constitution, the uber-wealthy salivating at getting even more money and power, or the rest. We can do nothing about this.
That feels utterly disingenuous, right? Like, if you’re a good person, it feels like you should do SOMETHING to help. But, unless you are bombarding resistant congresspeople with emails to uphold the Constitution, attending rallies and protests, boycotting bad businesses and the like, or sharing blogs and such to be a beacon of light and hope in the dark and fear, there’s nothing more you can do.
I want to help. But a lot of what I desire to do is get people who somehow think “woke” is bad and scientific methods are better than unsupportable opinions to see reason and logic. Guess what? I can’t. Unless they decide to.
So, what can I do? I can take care of myself. That means that, yes, you can take care of yourself, too.
Let’s begin by addressing the elephant in the room, shall we?
Self-care is NOT selfish
Let’s start by defining self-care. What is self-care? It’s literally taking care of yourself. This means doing things to maintain and improve your health, wellness, and wellbeing on all four levels – mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual.
Mental and emotional are similar but different. Mental is thought, emotional is feeling. You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Ergo, only you know yourself and what makes you feel good, bad, connected, disconnected, joyful, sorrowful, and on and on. Thoughts are where everything begins. If you’re allowing yourself to be dominated by negative, unhelpful, unhappy thoughts, your feelings will follow.
Then you’ll find yourself possibly anxious, depressed, hopeless, uncertain, lost, and various other negative concepts.
How do you care for mental and emotional health? By setting boundaries with people who drain you, establishing a work/life balance, getting therapy when necessary, taking time for meditation and stillness, reading for pleasure, watching things that make you laugh, and anything else that shifts your approach toward positivity.
Physical health includes exercise, rest, balancing your diet, visiting dentists and doctors, and being mindful of your fitness. Also, when your mental and emotional health suffers, so does your physical health. If you don’t care for yourself, your mind/body/spirit, who will?
Finally, spiritual health is more nebulous and challenging. It’s your belief in yourself, it’s how your values and beliefs react to the world, and it’s faith in potential, possibility, and the like. Yes, for some, this ties directly to a deity or the like. But for most, I think it’s best summed up in the notion of the Fifth Agreement from don Miguel Ruiz and his son don Jose Ruiz: “Be skeptical, but learn to listen.”
Any imbalance in these 4 elements of health, wellness, and wellbeing will impact you negatively.
Choose to take care of yourself
I think a huge part of the problem with many people in the world today is that they want someone else to help them. They look to find someone, anyone, to tell them who, what, where, how, and why to be.
Take everyone who speaks negatively of being “woke.” Do they understand, even a little bit, that the opposite of woke is asleep? How do they not see that not being “woke” means being influenced, controlled, and directed by others? Or is that what they want? To cede as much control as they can?
Look, I prefer to grow, evolve, change, learn, and do as much of the driving of my life experience as I possibly can. I love the challenges that I face, even when they make me frustrated, scared, uncertain, and the like. This is why toxic positivity is problematic. You NEED negativity not just to understand positivity, but to compare. Do you like feeling bad, down, sick, and hopeless – or – would you like to feel good, invigorated, healthy, and hopeful?
Nobody is there all the time. Everyone experiences problems, troubles, and seemingly insurmountable challenges. Every time you do, you get to choose if you will work to change your thoughts, feelings, approach, intentions, and actions as best you can. Or let yourself be influenced by others and cede control of your inner world?
Practicing self-care is NOT selfish. Selfish is doing something that knowingly causes harm and not caring about it. It’s taking all the pizza, knowing full well someone doesn’t get any – and not caring. All other forms of selfishness are a matter of perception, and not even in your control, so there’s that.
Take care of yourself. When you do, and you’re healthy, you can share more good with others.
Taking care of yourself isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing active conscious awareness (mindfulness) of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and the positivity or negativity of your approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you are the only one in your head, heart, and soul, and that only you know what you need for your mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health, wellness, and wellbeing, you see more closely that you alone can take care of yourself. Knowing that you can alter any aspect of your health, wellness, and wellbeing, and that taking care of yourself by doing so isn’t at all selfish, you can make choices and decisions to use this to better yourself. After you take care of yourself, you can help others, too.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity — from the vast cylinder that exists between them — shifts life in a way that opens greater dialogue. From that dialogue, you can recognize, explore, and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself opens the way for a positive approach and attitude via your actions. This can lead to realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself, here and now, the better you can choose and decide what, how, and why your life experiences will be. When you empower yourself, it can spread to those around you and empower them as well. That is an amazing conduit to help reason to overcome fear in the collective consciousness.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the six-hundred twenty-first (621) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, reblog, and spread the positivity.
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