Educating Yourself

With the state of the world at the moment and us being in pride month, I felt it would be appropriate to write about how you can keep yourself educated on the global issues you find most important. I hope I can help by pointing at "how not to do things" and show how you care about topical issues.

The first and obvious don't for me, is don't speak for others. It's very easy in our times, for people to post on their stories and be publicly vocal about specific issues. It can make us feel like, "Oh, I really should do that as well" otherwise people might think I'm racist or that I don't care about the environment... The reality is, that you should only believe or care about issues because you care about it. It's important to remember, that you don't have to publicly post about things that you aren't interested in.

However if you are interested in the matter, there are some ways you can educate yourself and others to change the world you live in:

The first and most crucial step is the most uninteresting: you have to read about the issue to know more about it. Make sure you don't read only one Instagram post or one tweet and immediately come to the thought "Yep that's it, the police has gone too far - it's time for anarchy". If you read about police violence and you must educate yourself using sources other than social media, because that will lead you to a dangerous conclusion. Your opinion can be skewed by any small amount of fake data or propaganda. By staying informed, especially on political issues, you are able to form your own opinion, which is difficult in a time where the media pushes their own view.

I of all people know that reading is boring. Listen, I don't want to do it either, but it's a good way to show that you are genuinely interested instead of make whims that you care about a subject you don't know much about.

As a tip what I find really useful as a dyslexic person is watching YouTube videos! For example I'm very interested in LGBTQ+ issues and I watch a bunch of YouTube videos to help educate myself. I've found it a really useful way to understand where people are coming from and why certain things happen.

Once you've read up on something, you should really take a bit of time to think: how did those sources make you feel? How do you justify your feelings? It's important to make sure you think those things rather then just leaching an opinion off someone else.

Now you should be ready for the most important part which is educating others. This is the bit that really helps make changes happen. Don't fall for the trap of posting on social media. In my opinion, those don't do much because how many of you really look at those stories? How many of you read further into that issue? The sad truth is that they are very often skipped over and ignored. The best strategy is to be vocal in person.

At the moment the American Police is a topical issue as we judge them for their very inhumane actions and blatant racism. If you care about the topic and have an opinion, tell people how you feel about it and have a calm little debate. Feel strongly about your opinions, justify them and try and to convince others because in the end that is the easiest way to make change. By convincing people and explaining to them why you feel that way in a calm and persuasive they may change their opinion and probably share it.

As a quick conclusion - it's good to care and want to make positive change in the world. But we need to get better at focusing that energy in the really important places rather than in social demonstrations. The world has never been so inclusive and yet so outrageous. It shows that the spark for people to make change still burns. That's a great sign as it shows that people are ready not to be complacent and try and solve the worlds' problems.