Change is up to us.

There's something wrong with the world today.
That's a comment that seems to be rolling from peoples tongues more often than it used to.
I couldn't disagree to be honest.
There's something very wrong with the world.
I wouldn't dispute that it is probably a comment that has been uttered by somebody somewhere since the very first day that we started questioning our environment, but because it is a common used phrase doesn't mean that occasionally we shouldn't stop for a minute and reconsider what we actually mean by it.
I can only speak for myself, but when I say those exact words what I mean is that in 2011 we really should be past people starving in the world, random and senseless acts of violence happening on our streets, governments advocating war for economic reasons, and we should especially be long past kowtowing to those in power who put the minorities interests before the majorities.
We should have eradicated all of that, and more, by now.
Where is our Utopian society that we should have been forever moving closer to?
Why aren't we in reach of it?
The main reason would appear to be that we simply can't be bothered expending the effort to make the world a better place, coupled with compassion and empathy being too easily set aside in the pursuit of personal gain.
We are lazy and greedy.
We are really just getting the existence that we deserve and I guess that we really do have a bit of a cheek to be complaining don't we?
Another problem that has led us to this point is the huge gulf between what we say and do.
We say murder is wrong, but support wars promoted to us on the flimsiest reasons and shout for the return of the noose at every hysterical headline that is designed to key into a primal urge for revenge.
We say poverty is wrong, but advocate a system that allows children to expire in gutters as long as that gutter isn't at the bottom of our paths.
We say greed is wrong, but in the main we would take the last slice of whatever was on offer before considering sharing it with another.
I could go on and on.
I read today that to eradicate hunger from the world would take an investment of $30 billion a year.
It's a huge sum of money and I'm sure that in these difficult economic times it would be understandable that most people would see that as an impossible task.
Yet would they still think that if they knew that the world allegedly spends that every eight days by pouring it into supporting military forces, wars and conflicts.
Now I would be fine with anyone attacking those figures, but double what is needed to eradicate hunger and half what is spent on conflict and the balance still seems.............well wrong.
So I ask you why? Why are we doing something that is so blatantly and fundamentally destructive?
Strip away much of the arguments and simplify them and what we really need to ask ourselves is why would we want to spend anything on wars when we could be spending it on building hospitals, schools, educating people on how to manage crops, creating vaccines and more?
There's that gulf between what we say and do right there.
Most of us would say we don't want to fund wars and we would rather our tax contributions went to more ethical projects, but what we do is allow it to be used to kill the guilty and innocent alike for reasons that most of us can't fathom.
Why don't we just listen to our hearts and stop trying to rationalise everything to excuse our behaviour and that of others.
The greed, the hate, the loathing for everything and the promotion of the welfare of the few over the welfare of the many has to simply stop.
This is a very beautiful world we live in.
This planet is lush with wonders and even we as a race, with all our flaws, are beautiful to.
We are unique in the universe.
So just stop for a minute, really stop and think.
What is going to make you happy, really happy?
The idea of making everything fairer for all, or the reality of making everything fairer for all.
We appear to be on the cusp of change. We are hanging on that moment before it all collapses, but this time lets make whatever we have that rises from the ashes better than just the repeating of the mistakes of the past.
Tomorrow really is another day. It really is another beginning. Lets not waste it.