There has been a YouTube clip that has been making rounds for a couple of months called ""Everything's amazing, nobody's happy."" In it, comedian Louis CK derides our current culture of indignant impatience and self-righteous consumerism. It has struck with resonance because he challenges us to take a second and self-reflect. We have become a culture of me-firsts and gimme-gimmes. We have become indolent and opulent and selfish. We entered the 21st century thinking that since we were standing at third, we had hit a triple. The harsh realities of the last year have hopefully begun a much-needed wake-up call: We are nine years late in making the changes we need to move forward into this new century. The changes aren't radical or daunting.
Shut up and listen
Too many times people want to be heard, but refuse to listen. We learn much more from each other when we give the other person the time and respect to make their point. No man or woman on Earth has all the answers. The problems of the 21st century are too big, too complex and too inter-related to be talked about in isolation. They require everyone involved in problem-solving to listen and collaborate. It is not about winning. It is amazing how much one's opinion on things can change when that person is secure and confident enough to engage another in a reasoned discourse.
Slow down
Many of us go about our lives rushing from one engagement to the next, very rarely stopping to enjoy a moment of tranquility. We expect the world around us to accommodate our every need and desire. We demand instant access and immediate results. We almost never stop to say thank you. All the while, life is passing us by in moments of wonder and intrigue. Life has to be more than fitting in everything you needed to do that day. It has to be more than spinning wheels and fast food drive-thrus. If we don't slow down, we won't have time to smile and laugh. We won't be able to wander down a street with no name and think to ourselves, as an old Zen saying goes, ""What now, is lacking?""
Learn from those much older and much younger
The hindsight of age and the freedom of childhood is lost on many of us. Most of the time we are blindly intent on running to whatever is next. But stop and watch a child play. Listen to their laugh. Walk through an elementary school and look into their eyes when they are painting or being read a story. Do any of us remember what it is like to be filled with that insatiable curiosity? Go to a senior center one evening and absorb their stories and become a part of their night. They have lived their youth already, but they haven't lived their life. Mark Twain once said: ""Youth, it's wasted on the young."" Learning from seniors and children will help put ‘youth' into perspective.
Find happiness in the small things
We all cannot be Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists or Nobel Prize-winning economists. We cannot all own our dream home or drive our dream car. Many times, we won't get what we want in life. But we can find happiness. We can find happiness in opening the door for a stranger or sending a birthday card to a forgotten friend. We can make each other live happier by doing small things that show we care. We have the potential to have positive impacts on the people in our lives by committing ""random acts of kindness.""
We can't change the world. We can't change the past. We can start to move forward. The movement we need is within ourselves.
Joseph Koss is a junior majoring in secondary education in social studies. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
