Imagine, waking up and watching the national news where the lead story is about Shaquita getting a perfect 1600 on her SAT, and the decision of whether she should go to Harvard or Yale.

Imagine news that talks about the humanity of a 13 year old girl who’s volunteering at a convalescent home, or the 18 year old boy who spends his spare time helping at risk youth prepare for college while studying engineering, or the guy in the NYC who’s been feeding the homeless for 18 years straight with his own money without ever taking a day off, or the 40 year old brother working to help former criminals reenter society after they paid their debt.

Imagine waking up and hearing a feel good story first thing in the morning.

Imagine if murder was only talked about from the side of the victim.  Imagine a world where the criminals remained nameless, were not newsworthy, weren’t provided a world stage by the media, and didn’t have anybody analyzing every detail of their lives including how they wiped the shit from their ass.

Imagine if the story was about how wonderful the victims were.  Imagine if the story was about how resilient their families were in putting their lives back together in spite of the tragedy.

Imagine if we changed our views and quit speaking from the perspective of fear and death and instead highlighted courage and life, resilience and hope, love and humanity.

Imagine if we started our sporting events with a song telling everyone to lift their voice and sing instead of a war cry about rockets, bombs, war, and enemies.

Imagine what our world would look like if war was a last resort and not a first threat. Imagine how our world would be if the news were even a little bit balanced.

Imagine if we gravitated toward light instead of darkness.  Just imagine, who and what we could be if we changed our perspective.

I point this out because in many respects training people is like training dogs. They learn what’s important by what we focus on and what you reward them for.  Teach children for 30+ years and no one notices.  Murder, rape, commit a heinous offensive act against someone, or even dunk a basketball, and they will immediately listen.  They will make you famous beyond your wildest dreams.  A spokesperson for this, a spokesperson for that.   They will revere you.

Our kids are watching and starving for attention.  By constantly showing them murder and violence, we are teaching them what we value. We are telling them if they want to make a name for themselves they need to be an entertainer, an athlete, or a criminal.