I struggled with reading the news today. You see the US impeachment process dragging out with both sides digging into their positions and ruthlessly lashing out at each other, providing the example for American citizens to follow. You see the bushfires in Australia, where I’m currently staying, and the havoc and despair they’ve caused. You see the continued violence in Hong Kong, where I just was, and try to make sense of it despite all the lack of or misinformation. Reading these things felt very real to me because I’ve recently spent time in these places.

Consuming the news can quickly become depressing. Sometimes you might wonder, “what can I do?” You can start with yourself. You can stay informed of the facts the best you can and have conscientious, constructive conversations with other people about what’s happening in the world. You can spread positivity to the humans around you—a quick glance at a newspaper shows we need it. You can focus on you, on being the best version of yourself possible. After all that, you can get directly involved: look up local organizations that are working on the issues you care about and donate your time to the cause most important to you.

I can feel you rolling your eyes. Some people say those things are too insubstantial, that they won’t make any difference. Staying informed and having conversations with people? Being positive? What good will that do? My response: have you tried it? It’s difficult. As I wrote above, sticking with the news isn’t fun. There’s so much negativity in our media and our political systems; it requires a certain kind of perseverance to stay informed week after week, month after month. Even harder is having open, balanced conversations with people about our social, political, and economic problems. How many times has a conversation with a friend or relative devolved into a heated argument or hotly contested shouting match? It’s hard to listen to someone defending something you vehemently disagree with. It’s as Andrew Shepherd says in The American President:

“America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.’ You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.”

Ignoring the flag burning debate, the rest of that quote sums up how hard it is to talk about important issues with people on the other ‘side.’ So yes, it’s hard to have conversations with people about our species’ problems, and in order to have those conversations you need to remain an informed global citizen, which requires a staunch refusal to give in to negativity. Of course it’s easier said than done.

But if these things are done? Then we have literally billions of people who seek the truth of what’s going on in the world, billions of people who try to understand, who try to learn from each other, billions of people who remain open and think critically about what is best for humankind, billions of people who do good in the world daily. If every adult on this planet does that, change can be achieved.

I believe we are on our way there. It doesn’t look like it right now, but I believe the current economic and political climate is forcing us to choose: we can give in and give up and let our world collapse into chaos. Or we can refuse. We can seek to understand what is happening, and talk about what the best solutions are. We can do what’s right every single day. We can rise up. We can unite. The stakes could not be higher. What will we do?