In our fast-paced world of lightning speed social media communications, we are constantly exchanging niceties, quips, barbs, blasphemies and gripes with strangers and brief acquaintances as well as life-long friends and family.

These quick expulsions of both positive and negative energies burst into the psychological space that makes up our collective consciousness.

That consciousness creates and, over time, transforms our human culture—for better or for worse.

We would be wise to be aware of our choices as we communicate with others.

What kind of energy are each of us personally sending out into the Universe?

Is it positive energy that will contribute to the common good and the health of the planet or is it negative, destructive energy that serves no beneficial purpose and may even do harm?

All of us have experienced times when people have said cruel and offensive things to us. Hurtful things that are unprovoked and undeserved. The sting can linger for hours and cast a disturbing pall on one’s entire day. The disturbance can also be passed on to others in fits of misplaced passion and anger and cause even more harm. And so it goes, on and on, from one to another and another.

We are not separate human beings. The separateness is an illusion. Einstein called it “an optical delusion of our consciousness.”

The truth is that we’re all an interconnected part of a whole. What we do to others and the environment, we do to ourselves. All of our thoughts and our actions have subtle effects, like ripples on a pond. These effects are mostly unseen by us, yet they ripple throughout the entire Universe.

Be careful of what you say and what you do. Your ideas, your thoughts, your words, your emotions have power.

If we direct these energies in positive ways, working for the good of all, there will be positive effects. Likewise, if we do the opposite, there will be negative effects.

So don’t be a “troll.” Be a force for good. Be a force for peace.

In everything that we say and do, we should choose love over fear and kindness over cruelty.

The whole world will thank us for it.

Laurence Overmire is the author of the recently released The One Idea That Saves The World: A Call to Conscience and A Call to Action. He has had a multi-faceted career as poet, author, actor, director, educator, and genealogist. His award-winning poetry has been widely published in hundreds of journals, magazines and anthologies worldwide. Overmire is an advocate for peace, justice, human and animal rights, and the environment.

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Ed: Lynn Hasselberger