“… in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” These words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ring strongly in my head recently and in this very moment as I am writing this. And this will live with me as one of my key principles in life, ‘No person should ever be judged – we shouldn’t even be judging anyone in the first place – by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.‘

Change must come from each and every one of us … and very importantly also, through the daily education of our young ones. However, we can preach all we want to the young ones, as long as we are showing otherwise, they will not do what we have preached; very simply put, “Why should I be doing that which you are asking me to do when you yourself are not doing it?”

Thus, the reason why I said that ‘Change must come from each and every one of us.’ In order to do that, shouldn’t we be watching our thoughts? The thoughts will form our actions which will translate to our speeches and the things we do. Purifying the heart with love, understanding, respect, and goodness of people and our actions will be that of love, understanding, respect, and goodness. As we sow, so shall we reap. To be honest, this is not gonna be easy and many of us will fail badly in the first attempt but we’ll get better.

Why should we be doing this? No one wants history to repeat itself; I’m sure you can find, through Google, numerous cases of social unrest in history when there was no racial harmony. Whether we like it or not, this does not affect only us, this goes on to affect our younger generation and for many generations to come.

In actual fact, we not not very different from each other. Today, will be the day we look upon another as the same as we are. Think about it, the person in front of us, could be just another’s grandparent or parent or uncle or aunt or brother or sister or friend …. just as we could be someone’s grandparent or parent or uncle or aunt or brother or sister or friend?

Today, let us join our hands to be part of that change to bring racial harmony to the world starting right there – in our hearts.

1. Focus on doing good things and all else will follow. This morning I read a comment someone made that being a good person is the world’s toughest task. Indeed, it could very well be the greatest challenge – especially when we put the focus on being a good person. Abraham Lincoln said it best when he said, “When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad.” Let us focus on doing good things and being a good person comes naturally in the process. It couldn’t have been more simpler than that. To do a rain check on ourselves, we can use the Integrity test: What we do when no one is watching us should be the same as when we know that someone is watching us. And follow our heart, not our ‘desire’, as it will always have the right answer for us.

2. Change should and must come from us – FIRST. I am a strong believer of Mahatma Gandhi‘s philosophy, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.” Instead of trying to change people, we lead and inspire the change.

3. Spend time with positive, loving and happy people. We know that positiveness and happiness are highly contagious, and yet we are allowing ourselves to be ‘beaten’ continuously by negative people around us. Have a clear picture of the kind of person we want to be and associate ourselves with like-minded people who are supportive and are willing to help us to become the person we aspire to be. It is easy to let go of negative people who are not closely related to us. How about those closely related to us? I’m not telling you to cut the tie completely; let them know that you will keep the lifeline always open for them and yet understand clearly that you can lead the horse to the river, you can’t make it drink. Understand also that they may not be ready now and there will be a time when they are ready; be there for them when they are.

4. Start loving people, including ourselves, and let go of any hatred we may hold of others. As Buddha said (I changed a little in this context), “Holding on to hatred is like grasping hot coals with the intent of throwing them at someone else, we are the one who will get burned.” Harness the power of forgiveness and free ourselves. As Louise Hay said, “I forgive everyone in my life, and release them with love. They are free and I am free.” Forgiveness free the people we hate and most importantly – free us.

5. Live in the present. Learn the lessons from the past and leave the past where it should stay. Start living in the moments. The things we are doing today will create the tomorrow we dream and putting our attention to the current moments can make a huge difference in simplifying our lives. Take care of today and tomorrow will turn out to be what we want it to be.

6. Start to take up responsibility. Putting the blame on others accomplishes nothing and complicates things. Be the master of our fates and the captain of our souls. Choose to be in control of ourselves, then to let go of that control to someone else.

7. Put useful information in our minds and mind our own businesses. The mind is the garden of our well-beings. Would we dump rubbish into our gardens? Yet, we are putting useless information into our mind. Online social medias like Facebook, Twitter etc are splendid way to keep in touch, yet many spend hours everyday minding the businesses of their friends in these social medias. We should be the one making use of these social medias and not the other way round.

8. Take a step backward in making decisions. Moving backward could be the best way to forge ahead sometimes. Think things through before making decisions especially when we know our emotions are kicking in. The best decisions are usually made with a clear mind.