“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

~Victor Frankl

Sometimes I think that if I could change the world, and run everything the way I want, then the world would be a better place. I’m a good guy. I have good intentions. I want the best for everyone; so it sounds like a good plan, right?

Why not just make me the king of the world? I would have the smartest people in the world serving in my cabinet to solve all the important issues that I don’t know much about. The rest will work itself out.

The truth of the matter is that we’ve all had that thought in our minds at one point or another. It’s our ego’s natural yearning. If only I got my way. If only I ruled the world. An even greater truth is that none of us are going to become the king of the world anytime soon. It would probably be a very lonely job, anyway. Too many responsibilities, too much on one person’s shoulders.

So how do we go about changing the world if we don’t have supreme reign over everything? The bad news is that it’s still our individual responsibility. Despite not being the kings of the world, the changes we make as individuals can and will impact the rest of the world if executed with great precision and passion.

Where We Make The Most Impact

I am convinced that we can create the most change in the world by concentrating our resources where we can have the most potential impact. This focus, unlike spreading our resources thin, allows us to have a more direct impact on individuals.

The part of the world in which we make the most impact, whether we like it or not, is within our families and small circles of friends. We may be successful in converting our family into believers, and they may even turn out to be our biggest group of supporters, or not. The point, however, does not lie in the way they treat us, but rather it’s in our behavior, and the actions we exhibit from our end; the way we treat them!

Being able to express compassion, patience, love, and understanding for the people in our families, despite opposing views belief systems, allows us to expand our ability to empathize with others. These abilities, which in my opinion are critical in interpersonal relationships, will become ingrained in us as second nature.

The fact that we have such a high level of influence on the people closest to us, our families and close friends, will make them more susceptible to picking up on these behaviors and adopting them as their very own. Thus, we spread compassion, patience, love and understanding. From one person leading by example to another.

Taking Impact To The Next Level

While transforming the world for our own families can be very fulfilling, many of our egos will strive for prolific change in the world. In one sense, our egos’ mission is to conquer the world. Whether it conquers it with a message of love or destruction depends on the individual ego.

You may think that family does not need to be a first step, and that you are perfectly capable of changing the entire world without such a close social bond. You’ll soon find out that human beings do not operate on such a paradigm. Whether blood related or not, people tend to gravitate to others, and eventually form a family unit. It’s a survival mechanism.

This is why I say to first work on yourself, then your family, and then the rest of the world. From this powerful core and support system you will have better resources, mental, material, and spiritual, in order to make breakthroughs with hundreds, thousands, or millions of people around the globe.

I leave you with this. Take into consideration how your global goal plays into your mission statement. Discover who you are going to be around your family in order to spread your message. Figure out how you will enroll the rest of the world into your possibilities.

“當我們不能改變環境時，我們就要試著改變自己。”———Victor Frankl

有時我想，如果我能改變整個世界，按我的方式管理所有的事情，那么這個世界將會變得更好。我是個好人。我的意圖也不壞。我希望每個人都能過得最好，這聽起來是個很好的計劃，不是嗎？

為什么不就讓我當世界之王呢？我將讓世上最聰明的人們在我的內閣服務，幇我解決所有我不太懂的重要問題。而其余的事也會迎刃而解。

事實上，我們都會時不時地在腦海中浮現出這種想法。這是我們自我本能的欲望。要是我能隨心所欲就好了。要是我能統治世界就好了。一個更勿庸置疑的事實就是目前我們誰都不可能成為世界之王。而這也會是個非常孤獨的工作。太多的責任、太多的事情都壓在一個人肩上。

那么，如果我們沒有統治一切的至高權力，我們該如何著手改變這個世界呢？不幸的答案是這還得依靠我們個人來完成。雖然不是世界之王，但是我們依靠個人深思熟慮和極大熱情所帶來的變化必將影響我們之外的世界。

我們影響最大的地方

我相信我們將力量集中在受我們潛在影響最大的地方就能給世界帶來最大的變化。這種集中，而不是將我們的力量平攤開來，可以使我們對每個人產生更直接的影響。

這世上我們影響最大的地方，不論你喜不喜歡，就是在我們的家庭中、在我們的朋友圈中。我們或許能成功地將我們的家人轉化為信徒，他們甚至會變為我們最大的支援團，但或許也不能。達成這一點的關鍵并不在于他們如何對待我們，而在于我們自己的行為和我們采取的行動，在于我們對待他們的方式！

不論觀點和信仰是否對立，都要能向家人表示同情、耐心、關愛和理解，這樣做能幇我們增強對他人的移情能力。這種能力，在我看來，對人際關系來說至關重要，它也將根植于我們身上成為我們的第二天性。

我們對親近的人（我們的家人和好友）擁有的高度影響力會使他們更易于熟悉這種行為，并接受它使之成為他們自己的行為。因此，我們是作為一個榜樣，將同情、耐心、關愛和理解從一個人傳向另一個人。 將影響擴大到另一個層次

改變我們家人的世界可能是很有個人成就感的事，但許多人要為取得更多改變世界的成果而奮斗才能滿足自我。從某種意義來說，我們自我的使命就是征服世界。用愛還是破壞來征服這個世界則由我們每個人的自我意識決定。

你也許覺得家庭不一定是改變世界的第一步，你不需要這個緊密的社會紐帶就能很好地改變整個世界。但你很快就會發現人類不是按這種模式生活的。不管是否有血緣關系，人們都趨向于相互吸引，并逐漸形成一個家族單位。這是一種生存機制。

這就是為什么我說首先要在自己身上下功夫，然后推向你的家庭，進而再達到之外的世界。從這個有力的核心和支持體系出發，你將會有更大的力量（思想的、物質的和精神的）在全球數百人、數千人、數百萬人身上取得突破性進展。

我留下這些問題給你：考慮一下你的全球目標在你的使命中如何體現；為了傳達你的信息,你在家庭中要成為一個怎樣的人；如何將家庭之外的世界納入到你可能的計劃中。