November 30, 2017

How To Change the World From Home

Hello, my friends!

With Thanksgiving a week past and Christmas upon us, we are reminded of the importance of giving and loving and making the world a better place. Although spreading peace and love and making the world a better place sounds great, it's not always that easy.

For one reason or another, we sometimes fail to fight for the causes we believe in. In my case, it's because I'm scared; scared of speaking up for what I believe in and being hated for it. If there's one thing I hate, it's drawing attention to myself. When I was in elementary school, I wouldn't even let my classmates sing "Happy Birthday" to me. I distinctly remember asking my kindergarten teacher to not sing to me, not even in a whisper. Now imagine if that attention wasn't happy birthday attention! This fear is what has always stopped me from standing up for the things I believe in, and I've always hated myself for it. Some people choose not to fight for a cause because they're lazy and the issue doesn't directly affect them. Other times, people refrain from speaking up or participating in protests because they are worried for their safety. Regardless of one's reason for not wanting to leave the house, you are still able to change the world.

For today's post, I have curated a list of things you can do to change the world from the safety and comfort of your very own home. Now you have no excuse for sitting at home and watching the world fall apart! Gotcha.

Sign Petitions
Signing online petitions is one of the easiest ways to change the world without leaving your house. There are a variety of websites fighting for a variety of causes, so whether you're an animal lover, a human lover, an environmentalist, an LGBTQ ally, or any other kind of advocate for equality, there's a petition for you. If you're an animal lover, download the PETA app and send emails to companies with the click of a button! Other powerful websites include www.thepetitionsite.com and www.change.org.

In case any of you are interested...

Petition to Impeach Trump:

Signing a petition takes no time at all, and it can make all the difference.

Donate
If you can't give your time or your labor, give your money so people can continue to do the hard work for you! There's nothing worse than having a team full of loving people willing to help, but with no money or resources to help with. Sometimes as little as $5.00 can be the difference between life and death for a child or an animal in need. I recently saw a video on Facebook of three, beautiful puppies who had been trapped in rock-solid tar and left to die. It's hard to believe that we live amongst disgusting, heartless monsters who feel the need to torture animals to death instead of giving them to loving homes, but we do. Luckily, a local organization was contacted and was able to save the puppies and nurse them back to health. Usually, the organizations that do the most work are nonprofits that rely on the public's donations to survive. If the organization that saved the puppies had not received so many donations, this story may not have had such a happy ending.

Here's a link to the website I donated to:
Animal Aid Unlimited

Here are some other links:
UNICEF (Reducing Child Mortality)
CARE (Defeating Poverty and Achieving Social Justice)
PETA (Animal Cruelty Prevention)
The Humane Society (Animal Cruelty Prevention)
ASPCA (Animal Cruelty Prevention)

Click the links and see which cause tugs at your heartstrings the most, then donate as much as you can! If the amount you want to donate isn't one of the options, type your desired amount into the "Other" box.

Play Games
If you don't have money to donate, why not play games? One of my favorite websites is freerice.com where all you have to do is answer ridiculously easy questions from a variety of categories. For every question you answer correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. How cool is that?! Although every item on this list of activities to better the world is easy, this is probably the easiest.

Recycle
Duh! You may not think that the recycling habits of a single person can change the world, but they totally can. Imagine if every person on the planet believed they had an impact on the wellbeing of the earth and decided to recycle. If you are already a recycler, reach out to your local businesses. Believe it or not, most of the companies that create the most waste do not recycle. I used to work at a popular restaurant where a thousand people could walk through the doors each day, using plastic cups, utensils, and dinnerware, and dozens of aluminum food pans a day, and nothing would get recycled. It broke my heart every single day to know that I was a part of something that was slowly killing the earth. Start recycling, and reach out to the companies that produce mass amounts of waste to do the same!

Spread Awareness
If you feel that there is no possible way you could make a difference, do your best spread awareness for the issues you care about. You may not have money to donate, but I know that if you are reading this blog post, you have access to the internet. Make a Facebook status, an Instagram post, or a tweet to raise awareness for a cause you believe in to enlist the help of those who can make a difference. Reach out to your family and friends, ask them to sign a petition, ask them to donate money, and make sure they know the importance of recycling. The more people who are aware of the issue, the better!

Give Compliments
This action isn't so much about changing the world as it is about making someone's day. If someone looks beautiful, tell them. If you like someone's outfit, tell them! There's nothing wrong with a spontaneous compliment to make people feel better about themselves. Give someone confidence and hopefully, they will give that confidence to others. Imagine if everyone brought each other up instead of tearing each other down! The whole world would glow and radiate positivity, automatically making it a better place to live.

That's it for today's post! I hope these ideas gave you some motivation to change the world, or at least raise awareness for the causes you care about. I urge you to click on at least one of the links featured in this post to do your part in making the world a better place. Thanks for reading! I'll see you in December for Blogmas 2017!

Until then,
Jordan x