I'm Baaaack And "It Gets Better!"

Welp, here's the fact of the matter, it is damn hard to keep on keepin' on with doing something good for others every day when you work from home. It might sound kind of like a crappy cop out, but the lack of human interaction, I mean real, physical human, face-to-face interaction that I have on a daily basis is dismally low. Which ironically, was part of the reason I started this little Goodness Project of mine - to minimize the amount of time I felt feeling sorry for myself and spend some time focused on others.

That said, I think I just need to get more creative. So, I'm back, I'm dedicated and today an issue seemed to keep bonking me over the head. It was like the universe was saying wake up. The issue: the struggles of the LGBT community. As an Oprah lover (for those of you out there who don't care for her, I'm sorry, but I don't want to hear about it) I've been getting a tad more vigilante about keeping up with my "O" finale season. Today, Chas Bono was the guest and man was his story a hell of a one. I struggle with the blues, but I can't imagine feeling like I was literally born in the wrong skin, the wrong gender and being perceived as something/someone I felt completely at odds with. How you keep going when you feel that way I don't know, but I give some big ups to anyone who finds that kind of internal fortitude to stay strong, stand up for who they are at their core and tell the rest of the world to take a hike if they don't like it.

Then, just a few moments ago as I was watching the Boston-Heat game (GO CELTICS!) there was a google chrome commercial that featured the "It Gets Better" project. The "It Gets Better" project was started by a gay man and his partner who created a YouTube video to put a video out there to tell young people in the LGBT community to keep faith and that life "gets better." Since then it's become a worlwide movement with people uploading their videos to inspire others and the web site expanding to include events, a blog, merchandise and a wall where you can pledge your support of the movement and your commitment to spread the message. I guess by now, the way I'm going on about this has become kind of obvious, I joined the movement, took the pledge and yep, this is me spreading the word to y'all: check it out here. And definitely watch the video (it made me cry, yea, yea, I cry at everything these days).

It hurts my heart when I hear the judgmental and callous things so many people (and unfortunately many people close to me) have to say about people who don't agree with them or aren't like them. It's such an awful waste of energy to spend time cutting others down, making fun of others and just generally spewing negativity out in to the universe. I once asked someone, who had made some strong statements about whether the gay community should be allowed to legally marry, if their child came to them as an adult and said "I'm gay," would they want them to be denied that right? Would they want others to say hurtful things about them? Of course, in this scenario, most people with any shred of compassion (and love for their child) take a step back and say "of course I'd want them to have that right and to be treated fairly in the world."

Why is that such a hard principle to live by? To go through life treating other people the way you would want someone special to you to be treated? I say it's not. It just takes practice.