Mind Games Forever

For every birthday candle blow out, for every penny thrown into a fountain, for every shooting star, it's always the same wish: world peace, now, pretty please.

Hope springs eternal, right?

A couple of weeks ago, I was asked the question, "What do you feel is the biggest problem in the world today?" My immediate answer was that people aren't treating each other with enough care, that there's just not enough love being passed around.

Love. There's a true abundance of it in my own life. Indeed, love overflow-eth for most of the people I know. That's not exactly the problem. It feels more like we -- as a collective species -- are lacking a wider sense of love for one another, for the masses of people who aren't in our day to day lives.

It can be a lot to ask to foster love for total strangers because, you know, they're strange. Plus, there are some seriously idiotic, evil and smelly people out there. None of these things make you want to devote any love to them.

This notion of loving the unlovable is all well and good when conceptualizing, when discussing it with other like-minded people. But, it sure is a challenge to put it into an active practice. I certainly struggle spare any love for the likes of certain war mongering politicians, hideously awful "role-model" celebrities, or parents who can hardly figure out how to protect themselves let alone their own children.

See what I mean? It leaves me feeling sour just typing those words about people I don't know and don't really want to know.

And there it is: the people I don't really want to know.

I desperately want to find love for everyone -- friend, foe and otherwise -- in spite of whatever shortcomings they may have. But, most of the time, it's almost too hard to a little spare find love for myself in spite of my own unlovable shortcomings. Perhaps, herein lies our cultural problem: not enough love for ourselves. If we worked on loving ourselves and all we have to offer each other, would that make it easier to share our universal love? Would that make it easier to have sympathy for each other's struggles? Would that make a drop in the bucket?

Yes, people. The answer is YES.

I always suspected John Lennon knew exactly what he was talking about when he said, "Love is the Answer." It's no mistake that song is entitled Mind Games.

This holiday season I've altered my world peace wish mantra. From now on I'm going to wish for world peace through love for every single person I'll ever know and never will meet.