Mother Theresa famously said: "I’m not against war, I’m for peace." Profound wisdom.

Please take a moment with me to direct your love to not just the young victims of the overwhelmingly painful massacre at the school in Connecticut and their families, but to all people who live in challenging, sad and painful circumstances in our world. Anyone can turn into a gunman if s/he is feeling left out, disconnected and lost. A gunman shames us all. Let’s make sure that we take care of all our sisters and brothers.

Let’s focus on a world that we do want to create and live in. Let’s ignore the media that will spread ever more fear with their reporting.

Gun control will help to prevent massacres. But ultimately we can only create a peaceful and safe society when we are wholeheartedly and passionately for such a society. And not when we are against guns.

We must change our thoughts from being against things we don’t want to being for things we do want. Scientists are discovering that thoughts are vibrations. Thoughts are energy. And from physics we know that energy cannot be destroyed. Today we live the life of our yesterday’s thoughts. Whatever occupies our minds becomes reality. So if we direct our thoughts to something that we don’t want, that energy will translate into the very thing our mind is preoccupied with and we get what we don’t want.

For most of us, when we look at our lives, we see many things we don’t want. We give a lot of thought to what we don’t want.Therefore, as strange as that may sound, we should not wonder why bad things continue to happen. Our lives and society reflect our thinking.

Dramatic transformation happens when we consciously direct our thoughts to what we do want. That’s what people do who miraculously recover from life-threatening diseases. That’s why breakthroughs happen after decades of violent conflicts when leaders finally embrace peace.

We need change. We long for peace. So let’s think peace. Let’s dream peace. Let’s do peace. Every day.

Let’s feed our minds and souls with possibility. We have not prevented the massacre in Connecticut. Yet, there is one thing we can do today. We can commit ourselves to the world we really want to live in. We can commit ourselves to joining the ones who dare to dream for better, safer and more just.

Scientists have found that stress leads to neural degeneration. If we bombard ourselves with negative thinking and negative news we increase the rate of cell death in vital parts of our brains. That’s the beginning of many problems.

We want the life of "for" and "pro". We need to sustain our belief in opportunities and positive change. We need to embrace our optimism — the very mission of The Intelligent Optimist.

It is an answer to the hurt we feel about the school in Connecticut and to the hurt we feel about so many other wrongs in our world.

Please join us in our mission to spread the message of "for" to change the lives of many.

Jurriaan Kamp,

co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Intelligent Optimist
 

Photo: flickr.com/photos/jenniferboyer/