From Love Comes Education

A book that affected my perspective of what it means to offer a public school education is "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortensen, a story of how after failing to achieve a major goal, his purpose and mission became clear, "to promote peace... one school at a time." It reads like a documentary about the discovery of this mission. By pursuing through a dangerous and desperate environment in a foreign land, Mortensen achieves the impossible in a way that deepens your appreciation for the opportunity children receive when provided with a public school.

Greg Mortensen and villagers of Warizistan

How many children in the United States dread getting up in the morning to go to school? Would their attitude be different if they knew someone had struggled, fought, and risked his/her life to establish the school? And, for that matter, how do we not know someone did fight to establish a school?

If I knew that someone had sacrificed his/her life to provide me - a stranger - with a quality education, I don't think I would have hit the snooze button so often in my school age days.

Education means something different to each person you ask. To Greg Mortensen, it meant an opportunity to provide children with hope where there was none. Do you appreciate the education you received or do you often wish you could have gone to a different school, a better school, or a bigger school? Think about it from a new perspective and embrace the feelings that come up. Positive or negative, just feel and reflect on the emotions and choose to see the loving opportunity from the situation.

Mortensen understands transferring negative emotions to positive outcomes. As he says in his book, "If we try to resolve terrorism with military might and nothing else, then we will be no safer than we were before 9/11. If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs.”

If inspiring children to choose a peaceful education is your passion, choose one of these small at-home actions, and you can help make a huge impact!

Work That Brings Hope

Work. Just the thought of the word has countless interpretations. For me, it means my occupation, what I do to pay the bills. The article (on page 14),  I Work, Thanks For Asking in the February 2013, edition of the Dallas Observer, shows another side to work. This story is about work, from the perspective of the homeless and citizens of South Dallas who live in extreme poverty.

Have you ever considered what it would feel like to earn your income in direct correlation to the day you worked? If calling in sick meant not eating or having a home to go to that day, we would suddenly have a better work ethic. So, what does that say about the homeless and part of the population who lives in extreme poverty? If you find yourself jumping to the conclusion that they're all lazy, take into consideration those who have an extremely hard work ethic but lack opportunity.

How can you provide someone with an opportunity to pull him or her out of a desperate situation and utilize their passions and talents? If you help one person get a job, it would change society. It would change the unemployment rate. It would change the overall success of your country. Volunteer with organizations like Jobs Have Hope to take that one, small step towards making the impact you were meant to make with your life.

Introduction to One Love

A path to self-discovery has taken me places I didn't know existed. These places weren't on any map. They were inside of myself. And One Love comes from this journey. I discovered that I wanted to pursue my life-long dream of obtaining a degree in Anthropology. In my college days, I had taken the only anthropology class offered at my Alma Mater, ending the semester with an A+. My passion was evident, yet common sense realized it's attack. And, I allowed it. I allowed my 'better judgement" to guide me down the path of business school to earn my Bachelor of Science in Marketing, and the Master's program that allowed me to obtain my M.B.A. My dear friend and I took the courses together - night classes, online classes, summer sessions, winter inter-sessions. The goal was to take any course we could, in order to graduate as fast as possible, which for us turned out to be sixteen months. This safe path lead to great opportunities and many exciting careers as a business professional, interactions with amazing co-workers and colleagues whom I am grateful for knowing, and plenty of lessons learned in the business world. It also provided a first class ticket to a stifling destination of being content and always feeling like there was more. This destination was a realization that I was not living my passion. I loved my day job, that's not the problem.  My life's purpose was not being fulfilled, and I could not determine what was the purpose, but I did know what was missing.

Long forgotten was my love for anthropology, my passion for people, and the beauty I could recognize in human differences. These things were replaced by demographics, consumer behavior, and social media insights. I knew how to drive consumer behavior in business, but I still had an unfulfilled passion for human behavior.

One Love

It is easy to recognize and understand that there are many differences between us and to understand that those differences separate us. But there is something that removes the separateness. In order to eliminate the darkness of hate, prejudice, racism and negative stereotypes, we will replace it with the light and love for a united human race. One Love is a belief system, a journey, and a test of human interaction. This blog is a reflection of our differences and examples of our similarities. It is a guidebook as to how to follow your own path towards acceptance of yourself and others. But, the ultimate goal is that it inspires you to reach out to others who are different than you are, with a warm, loving hand and an open heart.

We will take a step back from a larger perspective to see how humans are different because of cultural practices and how we are the same because of our humanness. These are the keys to unlocking something inside each of us that will change the world forever. These two concepts are the secret to obtaining and sustaining One Love.