Take a look at the world around you.

When you look at it, do you see more happiness or sadness? Do you feel lucky or unlucky? Do you see more love than hate? All of these are questions we constantly go through in our minds.

But what about the people who don’t? What about the people that often forget how precious life really is? The people that clearly cannot see right from wrong. Or the people that believe hatred and violence needs to take over.

Looking at the world around me, I know what I see. I see happy people and sad people. I see people who work their asses off for their families, and I see other people that are lucky enough to pay other people to work their asses off for them. I see people who are a lot less fortunate than I am, and I see a lot of people who are a lot more fortunate than me.

But in the end, what really matters? Happiness or sadness? Love or Hate? Which will win…

Over the course of the past few weeks, each time I seem to turn on the TV or open up Facebook, I come across an unlimited amount of news headlines...

“Three Baton Rouge cops shot and killed by lone gunman…”

“Student shot 5 people at high school in Washington…”

“Miami Children’s Hospital being evacuated due to possible threat…”

“Orlando shooting: 49 killed…”

“84 Killed in Nice, France terror attack…”

The list goes on.

How did this happen? How did we allow our universe to become this way?

In anticipation of writing this article, I stumbled across an article that stood out to me. The title, “Gun Violence Isn’t Somebody Else’s Problem,” stuck with me the second I read it. I remember thinking to myself, no but instead, it is all of our problems.

Later in the CNN article, Eric Liu writes, “It should not be. It cannot be. It is not normal in a civilized nation, to have over 30,000 gun deaths in a year. It is not normal, in a civilized nation, to expect educators and parents and first responders to have plans at the ready for a shooting at their school. It is not normal, in a civilized nation, to assert that the best solution to gun violence is for more people to have more access to more guns.”

Everything Eric Liu wrote in that article inspired me and got me thinking. I never knew how to approach an issue like this or find its proper “solution” until after reading his article, but here it goes…

In response to these shootings and continuous traumas, what is done is already over with. The only thing we can do now is improve and set new standards for today and what is to come.

We need to teach our children about proper peace and happiness. We need to demonstrate world peace and take responsibility for our actions. We need to teach them about self love and self pride. We need to teach them how to love themselves before they can love and make changes for the world.

Instead of asking ourselves, when will it end? We need to ask ourselves, when will it begin?