Sometimes it feels like the sky is falling and sometimes it is.  The news is scary.  Aljazeera reported that nearly 70,000 people from Gaza have died in the war (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11/8/death-toll-in-israels-war-on-gaza-surpasses-69000-as-attacks-continue).  It feels like genocide.  The pictures look like genocide.  And what about all those people who are displaced, hungry, alone?  And the numbers of children involved.  That is just in one small corner of the world that is slightly bigger than a city.  What about all the other suffering happening everywhere else? 

I recently read Omar El Akkad’s book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.  Talk about an emotional roller coaster.  I feel horrible.  Paralyzed.  In his book he takes about the hopelessness of the Gaza crisis from his point of view.  Every time I think about it, it makes me feel awful.  I feel hopeless.  (I also read The Second American Civil War by El Akkad, which was also a great read.  I appreciate his point of view and ideas.)

Omar El Akkad’s newest book is an indictment against the West, USA, and its citizens.  It felt like an indictment against me.  As the reader I felt like I was personally made to feel responsible for the genocide in Gaza and the other ills of the west’s late-stage capitalism.

I am feeling:  How can I let this happen?  Why am I not doing anything?  While I read it, I felt so overwhelmed by my own inaction that I just sulked.  Then I started ask what could I realistically do about any of it?  If I stopped traffic and help up a pro-Palestinian sign – which I was considering as I was listening to the book, would that actually make a difference?  Maybe it would.  Maybe it wouldn’t.  Jail time – talk about another ill of society – isn’t going to be helpful to fixing any problem.

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No.  NO!  HELL NO!  Omar El Akkad is wrong!  I refuse to give in.  I can only effect change on a scale given by my means.  Each one of us have limited influence and you can only do what you can to make the world a better place within those constraints.

I am working hard to improve those means so I can enact more positive change.  I am not sulking, I am building and learning and scheming and helping and loving my way to a better world.  I am not just sitting by.  I am taking action to make a difference.  I am giving everything I have and I am not leaving anything on the field at the end of the day. 

The solution is taking positive action to make real changes!  Hey, we are all going to pull in different directions, that is okay!  If we pull toward the side of love we will help to combat the ills of our society. Seriously, we live in a democracy, if we tell our politicians (and mean it) to love thy neighbors and help people, then the government will do those things.  We really need to practice what we preach and love our neighbors especially if they are immigrants, from a country at war, and struggling to make ends meet.

We all need to pull now!  Don’t hold back.  We can’t fix the past but we can make the situation for the future better!

There are so many examples of people in my life who are all pulling in the right direction.

My beautiful amazing bride (yeah, I still call her that) after learning about what life is like as an immigrant became an advocate for immigrants.

My brother—in-law who felt he needed to stand up and make a difference and ran for local political office

My dear friend, former co-worker, and former student who goes to school to help fix problems to help climate change and volunteers with Big Brothers in the evening.

Our Lab coordinator who careful sits with our students and advocates for them. 

My family members – who are card carrying Republications – who volunteer with their church to help their community flourish.

The students who stood up for Palestinian at Universities last year.

My best friend who is a mental health liaison for local police officers.  He is a first responder and helps to defuse difficult situations.

The Cosmic Pathways, STEP-UP and SPSCon teams who make a difference through science advocacy for all people.

My former student who was no time in her schedule to help people because she is over worked as a graduate (where she studying helping people in science), somehow still finds a way to show up and help people.  She was such a big hit in our alumni event this week.

No body hears about these people!

Left or right.  It doesn’t matter!  We have to shift our narrative away from greed.  We need to be good and mean it.  We need to take action and make a difference.

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So here’s the thing.  It is not going to be without risk.  When you stand up and say a thing, you are setting yourself up to be knocked down.  You still have to stand up and say the thing.  Do the thing.  But there are going to be so many haters to shoot you down.  Stop worrying so much about the words and turn it into actions. 

As someone who spends a lot of time trying to push the envelope toward the side of love, I find myself in a constant struggle with haters.  I keep telling myself the more haters you have is a sign of success.

And when you put yourself out there, there is a risk bad things can happen.  The more you try, the more bad that can come to you. 

Last night after helping at the Big Brother’s event, I went back to school to work on helping a student with a project.  She has a big exam tomorrow and doesn’t have the time to fix this issue.  (I love making students suffer through difficult issues but in this case it didn’t seem useful.)  So, I stayed late to fix the problem. 

Driving home at night I hit a deer – it jumped out at me while I was on the otherwise empty highway.  There was absolutely nothing I could do.  It was horrible.  There was a lot of standing around.  It was very cold.  The police were there.  It wasn’t fun.  The car is bad shape.  I’m fine.  The deer is not. 

Could I have gotten into an accident if I left earlier?  Of course.  You never know.  I guess I felt after all that, bad are going to happen anyways and our time on Earth is short, better to go out swinging trying to make a difference than shell-shocked into inaction.  So time to get to work!