The current world we reside in scares the shit out of me. We live in an unbalanced and corrupt place some people like to call Earth. Earth is comprised of societies. These societies are comprised of an interminable list of issues: stratification, inequality, poverty, injustice and grievance. I have seen and therefore comprehended the extremity of these issues through my passion for travel.

I hold vivid memories of my twelve-hour car ride through India, from New Dehli to McLeod Ganj. For twelve hours, I sat and stared out the window, mind boggled. I saw nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. I saw naked families, scavenging through the filth of the streets. So much waste, but not enough to fill their bellies. I saw a woman carrying fifteen bricks on her head to a man who stacked them. One by one. No machinery. I saw clusters of plastic tents stabilized by sticks; home to too many kids, and too few adults. The kids sat on government own land, playing pass with an empty bottle of whiskey.

But all of this, all of these people, were surrounded by nothing. I am unsure where the lady got those bricks from, or where the children’s parents found that alcohol. There wasn’t a housing complex or a CVS or even a McDonald’s.

Trash, dirt, emptiness. Pollution, isolation, nothingness. That was all.

This anecdote illuminates the stratification, inequality, poverty, injustice and grievance I previously mentioned.

Yet, through observations that I have collected during my life time, I realize that many people remain ignorant about the severe struggles of other people. They tend to blow up a bubble around themselves in which they are encapsulated yet excluded from the terrifying reality of greater world issues. The bubbles they reside in constitute the fertile core of ignorance. The bubbles prevent, confine, and restrict, so that the people within these bubbles are incapable of thinking past themselves.

Sometimes, like during times of crisis, prioritizing and considering yourself is impulsive and immediate: how will this issue affect me, my family, my life, my resources? Despite my bubble analogy, I would go as far to say that it is an innate human quality to be narcissistic. It is expected and natural to think about the way that an event, change, or catastrophe will affect yourself before thinking of the way it may affect a stranger. Yet, it is so necessary to extend past yourself. It is so necessary to pop the comforting bubble that blurs anything that does not relate directly to yourself. Extending your thoughts and actions beyond yourself is the fundamental aspect of positive change.

In these bleak times robust with stratification, inequality, poverty, injustice, grievance, and arguably … hopelessness, I challenge you to constantly extend past yourself. Of course, consider yourself and your loved ones. But, at the same time, prioritize considering strangers, considering the greater picture. Being aware and being conscious of the complex struggles that clutter our world is the first step in optimism and progression. Extend past yourselves. Acknowledge reality. Pop the bubble. Our world begs you.