Director of Changing the World

Several months ago my brother made the big move from his lake front cottage in rural Vermont across the vast expanse of the US to his new job in California. The job was created for him and came with the job title "Director of Changing the World."

My brother is a pretty cool guy. He is intelligent, articulate, humble and unassuming, and he can be pretty goofy, too. He genuinely cares about humanity in general and individual people, too. Personally, I can't think of a person better suited for the job of Director of Changing the World.
God knows we need some changes!

But I am wondering...
If the task of directing change in the world was left to you (or to me), how would we go about it and what would our priorities be?

When I look around me today -- the news, social media, the church, politics -- the thing that I find most disturbing is the amount of fear that we have. I know that much of it is hyped and spread by those that wish to control the fearful by promising control over the ones they fear, but the consequences are real and quite destructive. I don't know how to go about combating the machine that spews hate and causes fear other than to educate the masses to the truth.
Education, exposure, and experience are the greatest weapons against fear. Unfortunately, many choose to remain willfully ignorant because fearing is easier than education and education may mean finding out that we have been wrong all along.

What would happen if we each began to examine our critical beliefs with the idea that we may have it wrong? What if we stopped looking at generalities -- Republican, Democrat, black, white, Christian, Muslim, atheist, straight, gay, etc. -- and looked at individuals and based our judgments solely on their merits?
What if we were to examine the teaching of our god against the teaching of another god?
What if we examined the purpose of government and found that large blocks of citizens were being forgotten or actively oppressed by the political party we've supported?

Would we be willing to change our way of thinking and speak up about our new found truth?
In today's environment, many people are more afraid of the consequences of speaking to the truth they are of being wrong. They would rather continue in their ignorance than find out they need to make a change.

I'm afraid that changing the world would be far too difficult a task for me. I struggle with the changes that I need to make in my own heart and mind. Through education, exposure, and experience, I am finding that I have been wrong about a lot of things and a lot of people.

Maybe I need to hire my brother to be Director of Changing John.
It wouldn't make a great impact on changing the world, but it would be a start.

John <><