The Evil in the World

There is so much evil in the world these days. Everywhere around us. No matter where we look we can find it. Spending the weekend in Las Vegas was fun and great, but it was also so filthy there. We walked down the strip with so many people smoking and drinking. You look around at the lights and can't avoid seeing uncensored billboards, so then you look down at the ground and see porn cards advertising strippers or prostitutes. Gross.

But an even bigger concern I have about the evil in the world is not what we have to walk through sometimes, but it is the evil in our hearts. The way we think about people. The way we think about the world. And perhaps we generalize evil to everyone and everything. There is also a lot of good in the world. And that is what we should strive to be surrounding ourselves with. Not just on the outside but in our hearts, too.

There was a lot of good that I saw this weekend - in Las Vegas. Most people were kind. Most people were modest. It may have help that we were at the ALA conference, but still. We saw a lot of people who were honestly trying to make the world a better place. We watched a fountain show that brought me chills. There was even a romantic proposal caught on camera!

I came home and checked my email to find something rather disturbing. A threat had been made to my place of work. It made me worry the rest of the night, thinking of what I would do if someone really came to attack us there. Now I at least have a plan, and a pretty good one. A few weeks ago, my sister had to go to a meeting about the same type of thing. Since there have been rather a lot of school shootings lately, she had to learn what she should do if one were to happen at BYU. That was really scary for me. I tend to want to protect my family from harm. I've always protected her. But this one is out of my control.

I think that we can all make the world a little better if we choose to see the good in people. Look for it. Hope for it. Believe it is there. Because if we give up on the people around us, we become more cynical. If we doubt the good in the world, there is nothing to keep us happy. We need that in our hearts. We need that in the world. 

I love this video that so beautifully urges us to believe the best in each other and doubt the bad.

I ask myself, and invite you to do the same: Is there evil in my heart? I am trying to think better of people. If someone irritates me, I try to look at them until I feel some love for them. Everyone has at least a little bit of good in them. I want to find it. I think I will be happier.