... be changed?

Yes, ... be changed. Change is going to happen. That's just how things work. You can fight it, or you can be a part of it. This is one of those issues in which abstention is not an option.

Doing nothing means we will be changed. We'll have no choice, no influence on the outcome. We can only react, not act. Granted, we may not have much influence on the whole problem, but, as I pointed out last time, we always have the option of changing ourselves. And if we change ourselves, as pithy as it sounds, we have changed the world.

Now, what kind of change is within our control that might have a world-changing impact. I know that most of you figure you're pretty OK just the way you are, but I'm here to tell you that you aren't. You, me, everyone ... we all need to change, and we all need to make the same change: we have to stop putting ourselves first. What, you ask, are you talking about? My whole life revolves around others, and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't. You are the center of your own little world. We're all the centers of our own little worlds. And, that, my friends is the real issue.

We're pretty much programmed that way. From the time we can hear, we're told we have to look out for ol' #1, that if we don't take care of ourselves, no one else will, that you have to be your own person, that you can't take crap from anyone else, that you have to get yours before the others get theirs. We get it in varied and subtle ways, but we get it day and night, 24/7, on the Web, on TV, on the radio, at work, at school ... simply everywhere and everywhen.

While I will be among the first to admit that there are those of you who have done a pretty good job of resisting, but even you haven't gone far enough. For those of you who I've described quite accurately, it's obvious that you have to get started on yourselves immediately. But we all need to change, either in direction or intensity ... it doesn't matter to me, but we have to start putting others first ... not saying we put them first ... actually putting them first.

It doesn't have to be everyone all at once. This is something you can do in small steps, if great leaps are not really your thing. Pick one person a day (or week or month ... no, a year's too long) and put them before yourself: literally, figuratively, seriously. You can start local, too. No need to pick some unknown person from sub-Saharan Africa (unless that's where you happen to be), you can start with your family, friends, next-door neighbor. It doesn't matter, as long as you do it.

If we all do it, I suspect we have a chance for a better future. Yes, it means fundamentally changing the way you think, but what's wrong with that? I mean, if you always think what you always thought, you'll always get what you always got. It's that simple. Still skeptical? Fine, be that way, but when the world does go to hell in a handbasket, you won't be able to say that no body ever gave you the chance to save it. I did.