Two Steps to Change the World

If you ask most people how to change the world they will say some variation of "start by changing yourself," or something like that, but they never speak to what you do afterwards.

To me, there are two parts of changing the world, self-mastery, and service.

We can't avoid influencing other people, no matter how much we would prefer to just work on ourselves first. Whether you like it or not you do influence other people just by living your life. So how do make sure our influence is good influence?

Choose Good Influences

It's just like people say, start by changing yourself. Change your attitude, change your influences, the media in your life, your friends, how you use your time, everything that affects you.

Make sure that everything that you read, watch, listen to or allow to influence your thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors is leading you to become the best version of yourself. Remember, wherever it comes from is where it leads. If it comes from God, it leads you to heaven. If it comes from the world it can only lead you to worldly success, and may leave you empty in the end. And if it comes from people and influences that are not a good example to you, you can guarantee that their influence will not lead you to where you want to be. So be intentional about your influences. It's like you choose every bite of everything you eat and it affects what your body becomes, choose good influences, and work on yourself.

But don't stop there, because there are a lot of people who need you to look up, notice them, and reach out. Don't just change the input, change your output. Some of this will happen automatically. As you change the influences in your life, and start to make better choices for how you use your time, you will become a better person and naturally have a better influence on other people.

Live, to Give

The next thing to do is to become an active contributor to society. The sooner you live better the more good you can do. The more you develop your skills and abilities the more you can use them to do good for others. The more you learn the more you can teach, the more self-reliant you become the more you can serve others. But it's not just about developing your potential to do good, I am talking about actually doing good. That means living a life of service.

You don't have to look very far. Love your family, love your friends, love your neighbors. Love is an action verb which means service. Serving others simply means to do what you can to help them meet their needs, and the most basic need that everyone has is simply to be seen and to be known, seen, acknowledged, and understood. Sometimes the most healing experience for someone who has gone through a hard moment is to know somebody else understands them. Maybe that's all it takes to let go of the pain.

But if someone is going through an experience that is painful or difficult right now, another way to serve is to ask yourself how you can help others with their physical needs. Simply do what you can, and give what you have.

An outward looking, and selfless orientation towards other people will do so much good.

In the world of online and influencers, you can be real influencer by developing self-reliance and living a life focused on serving others.