Every night I watch the news with my family during dinner and I see all the bad things happening and wonder what I would do if I had the power to change the world? As a creative writer, what could I do? I often feel hopeless and helpless as I hear about the latest mass shooting or the slaying of an innocent child, the gang warfare in my hometown of Chicago and the threats of war by North Korea. It is more than overwhelming but we as human beings and as U. S citizens probably have more power than we realize.

The first way that I would change the world is to learn everything I can about what’s happening in the world and find out how I can use my talent as a writer to help heal people or even perhaps influence them to want to make this world better than it is. There are so many books out there that can help us escape the problems of life but they can also be used to inspire us. Make us see our lives and other people’s lives from a different point of view. Create compassion and understanding where there was none.

The second way is to use my voice as a writer to take a stand and speak about the things that I believe in. To not be afraid to talk about the things that make us uncomfortable or cause controversy. To make us think about not only why we do the things we do but to want to make us look deep within ourselves and want to bring forth change that can not only better our own lives but also better the lives of our families and our friends.

The third and final way would be to allow myself to be criticized and judged by what I write about and talk about because something would have to be sacrificed and to survive in a crazy violent world, fear is not an option. I want to make people think and listen and maybe even try to understand each other. We judge too much, we try too hard to ignore the things going wrong around us. We drink we get high and we rant about everything but how often do we try to fix anything? Talking about it, and writing about it, getting the world talking can bring forth understanding, not just of the human condition but of each other as people, as neighbors, as coworkers, as bosses, as friends, as parents, as children. Because if we can’t learn to work together and stop worrying about what color he is or where she comes from or why he sleeps with him? We as a nation don’t have a prayer.