Tag: respect

caring, compassion, Core Four, empathy, Love, RECK, respect

30 Ways to Counter Hate

Matthew Vasko

Nowadays, it seems that hate is everywhere. We might encounter it most on social media, but it sometimes rears its ugly head in conversations with family members and acquaintances. We might even encounter it on the street or in public places. Here, you will find 30 thoughtful ways to counter hate compiled from trusted sources like the United Nations and Southern Poverty Law Center. Read on!

1.      Report Offensive Content: The very first thing you can do online is report offensive content. If someone is speaking hate on a platform then let the people who run that platform know! On Facebook, for example, there are simple options you can click to report hate. Most places don’t want to support hate speech.

2.      Share Positive Stories: Counter hate speech with love speech. Share positive stories about targeted groups, and cultures other than your own.

3.      Fact-Check: Don’t hate the haters. It’s not constructive. Instead, counter their hate with facts. Fact-check misinformation and wrong-headed rhetoric. Provide reliable sources to back up your statements.

4.      React! Do not remain silent. Silence implies agreement. You have to speak up to let hateful people know that they are wrong and that you do not agree with them. Remain calm and logically state your case.

5.      Change the Narrative: Challenge hateful rhetoric and misinformation. Help ensure that hate is not the dominant narrative by sharing a positive message that spreads tolerance, equality, and truth.

6.      Stand up! Stand with people who are targeted by hate. When targeted groups march, march with them to show that we all have a responsibility to stand up against hate.

7.      Report Threats: Report threats of violence. Don’t take violent threats lightly, report them to the police. Authorities need to be made aware of threats of violence in order to take appropriate action.

8.      Advocate and Educate: Advocate for responsible and respectful speech and behavior. Share campaigns aimed at countering hate speech. Educate family and friends about our shared responsibility to stand up to hate.

9.      Commit. Join a nonprofit organization that works to counter hate in your community. Join UNICEF USA, Amnesty International, or your local chapter of the United Nations.

10. Celebrate Other Cultures: Attend festivals, community events, and film series that celebrate and honor cultures other than your own. Bring your children and teach them to love other cultures, too.

11. Teach kindness and tolerance: Prejudices are not innate – they are learned traits. Counter hate at an early age by teaching children to be kind, respectful, empathetic, and compassionate to all people.

12. Calmly ally: Stand up for others! If you see someone being bullied or attacked do what you can to disrupt it. Ask the person who is being targeted if they need help. Calmly ally with the person or call for help.

13. Be the First to Speak Up: Social psychology studies show that when situations erupt, people look around them for cues about how to respond. Give the people around you the cue that they need to speak up or take action when hate rears its ugly head.

14. Build Up Your Courage: Work on building up your courage. Take small steps, which will lead to larger and larger steps. Do one thing to stand up to hate and then another and another. Visualize yourself taking action in situations where no one else is, so if that type of situation presents itself you will be ready.

15. Ask for Help: Ask for help when you need it. Be careful not to put yourself in harm’s way and remember that there is safety in numbers. The more those of us who are speaking up ask others to join us the more people will be involved.

16. Find role models: Look at the people around you who are taking action and speaking up and join them or model your actions after theirs.

17. Make All Kinds of Friends! Make new friends with people who are different than you. Get to know all sorts of people and make friends with people who have different identities and backgrounds than your own.

18. Ask People What They Need: Wear a pin or button that shows solidarity with people targeted by hate. Let them know that you are their ally and ask them what they really need in terms of support. Some people say, “Be a co-conspirator or an accomplice.” This means to even go a step further than being an ally.

19. Press the mental pause button: Be careful about not getting so caught up in your own day or your own business that you accidentally ignore someone in need. When you see something happening, pause. Take a moment from your busy day and ask yourself, “Does that person need help?”

20. Support victims of hate: Let victims know you care. Surround them with love and care. Do whatever you can to help ensure that they do not become victims again.

21. Report Hate Crimes: If you are the victim of a hate crime, report it to the authorities. Be specific and share as many details as you can.

22. Speak up: If news reports are covering hate, ask for equal time to speak up on behalf of unity, equity, inclusion, and diversity.

23. Keep educating yourself: Make an effort to learn more about everything from the hate you are working to counter to the people and groups affected by that hate. Learn the difference between a hate crime and a bias incident.

24. Hold a Unity Rally: If a hate group is hosting a rally in your area then create an alternative event for people to attend. Draw the media’s attention away from the hate rally.

25. Pressure leaders: Write and call your government officials and encourage them to stand up for targeted groups. Some of them will need to overcome fear of taking action and others will need to overcome their own biases.

26. Stay engaged: This is something we all need to keep at. So, find ways to stay engaged with countering hate. Promote tolerance and acceptance. Follow “It Matters How We Treat One Another” on Facebook and Instagram. We share something almost every day that counters hate.

27. Host an EDI Event: Host an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Event! This is especially important if you are a middle, high school, or college student. You have the power to change hearts and minds. You will be reaching your peers at an age when they are most susceptible to hate groups.

28. Keep Working on Yourself: Search inside yourself. Do your own work to rid yourself of biases and stereotypes. This type of inner work is a long process and takes time and patience with ourselves. Keep at it.

29. Practice mindfulness and meditation: These practices can help us learn to remain calm in high-pressure situations. You will be happier with how you handle yourself when you are confronting hate if you are able to remain calm and not be provoked.

30. Keep Practicing Love: Finally, heed the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate can not drive out hate, only love can do that.” As we often post on our page: We’ve got to love the hate out of this world! Keep practicing love and together we can create a more loving world and a brighter future for everyone.

Thanks for reading and keep fighting the good fight.

With love,

Matthew David Vasko

Founder, Century of Compassion

Love

Love Adds Meaning to Life

Matthew Vasko

People sometimes ask me what is the meaning of life. I’ve pondered this question for much of my life and more and more I feel like the answer has to do with love. I think it goes something like this: We exist to love others and to be loved in return, and it is this love which gives life meaning.

Fred Rogers once said, “It all comes down to love. Love or the lack of it.” Isn’t that the truth? Think of all the times that your life was shaped by love or the lack of it.

So, love. All kinds of love. Romantic love, familial love, the love that exists between good friends, the love we extend to strangers… all this love. It gives life meaning. Certainly if it is not the meaning of life then it at least certainly adds meaning to life. It begs the question… why aren’t we better at it? Why don’t we spend more time teaching it?

There are five key ingredients to loving people and loving them well. They are kindness, respect, empathy, compassion, and acceptance. That last one is the hardest, but it also helps to generate unconditional love, which is the greatest love we can give.

Think for a moment about about kindness. This is the low bar of love. Being kind when your aim is to be loving is the very least you can do. Somehow, however, we can sometimes manage to be the least kind to the people we love the most. We use up all our kindness out in the world and then by the time we get home our kindness tanks are on empty. We need to be sure to save some kindness for those who matter most to us.

Respect is a true test of love. You’ve got to give people respect if you love them. This simple fact is sometimes lost on people, but the fact is that a lack of respect can result in some of the greatest injuries in life. This is a big one we need to teach our children – if you want to be loving towards someone be sure to be respectful towards them (even siblings!). A lack of respect always feels like the opposite of love, and respect is always well received.

Empathy is the human trait that is all too often undervalued. Feeling like those who love us truly “get” us is a magical feeling. Empathy is the key that unlocks connection. When we empathize with others it allows us to form deeper and stronger connections that can last a lifetime. Believe it of not, empathy is especially important with young children. We need to remember that we were little once and the world was once big, scary, and often overwhelming. With little ones we need to slow down, be patient, and do our best to empathize with their big feelings.

And this brings us to acceptance. To accept others exactly as they are is powerful and often can even be healing. Every person – universally – does better when they experience acceptance, especially from their immediate family. Love that includes accepting people as they are is the definition of unconstitutional love. This is the greatest kind of love and the love that many people long for. Everyone needs love and acceptance.

So there you have it. Love adds meaning to life. And the better we love people the better off they are. Do your best to love those in your life with kindness, respect, empathy, compassion, and acceptance, and you will be loving them in the best way possible.

With love,

Matthew Vasko,

Founder, Century of Compassion

compassion, connection, Core Four, empathy, kindness, Love, Obliterate Hate, respect, Uncategorized, Values, Well-Being

We All Share A Common Humanity

Matthew Vasko

Stop. Take a breath. Forget about everything you’ve been indoctrinated into over the course of your life. Zoom out on planet Earth. As you look you will see a simple truth: We are all one humanity. There is one human species on this planet and we are all part of it. There is no “us” and “them.” There is just us. All of us. One human race.

This is the simple fact of the matter. When it comes right down to it, we are all more alike than we are different. We all want similar things: love, safety, security, food, water, shelter. We all want to be free to achieve our best version of ourselves and to live our best lives.

With these simple truths in mind we need to learn to live together. We need to learn to get along with one another. We need to learn to respect one another and honor the things in one another that make us different. This is the challenge of our times. This is the path to greater peace and prosperity. This is how we change our shared world for the better.

Don’t buy into the nonsense. Don’t believe those who wish to divide us. They are unwell. They are poisoned by the toxic tribalism that has kept us separated for millennia. We need to grow up as a species and learn to overcome petty differences. Because in the end, we are all capable of getting along with one another and even loving one another.

Love. That’s really what it’s all about. We live to love and be loved. The problem is that not all of us have learned how to love properly. True love does not seek to control. Real love does not do harm. In order to love properly, love must contain four basic elements: kindness, respect, empathy, and compassion. I call these the Core Four.

With the Core Four in place we can learn to love and love well. We can lay a foundation that allows for trust to grow and flourish. We can help each other enrich our wellbeing. The Core Four works on an individual level, on a community level, a national level, and an international level.

We need everyone to embrace and act upon the Core Four. If each individual would learn to treat one another with the Core Four values of kindness, respect, empathy, and compassion we could overcome much of what ails the world. What we need is a Global Covenant to commit ourselves to the Core Four as individuals, communities, societies, and globally.

Such a commitment would be no small feat to be sure, but it’s worth striving for. With the help of the Core Four we could all look forward to an ever brighter future with greater wellness and peace for everyone.

Isn’t life hard enough? Doesn’t nature dish out enough hardship without us making life harder for one another? First, do no harm. Then, love and love well. Love with the principles of kindness, respect, empathy, and compassion always in your heart and mind.

A brighter future is possible.

We each really and truly can make a difference in the world.

Let’s all strive to be the best that we can be and to love one another with the added benefit of the Core Four to guide us.

After all, we all share a common humanity.

Wishing you the very best,

Matthew Vasko

Founder, Century of Compassion.

Acceptance, compassion, connection, empathy, kindness, Love, respect

The Core Four Will Change Your Life

Matthew Vasko

What if I told you that you could have a happier life filled with lots of positive interactions and great relationships with all kinds of different people? What if I told you that all you need to do to have all this is keep four simple principles in mind as you go about your day? Would you be willing to give it a try?

The secret to having great relationships and building lasting friendships is these four principles: kindness, respect, empathy, and compassion. But the trick is to keep them in mind as you interact with all people, all the time.

Start with kindness. Let’s be honest, the world needs more kindness. Even a little kindness will go a long way with people. A lot of kindness will go even further. Kindness is wonderful for breaking the ice and getting to know people. It helps sustain long-term relationships.

Respect is next, because if you aren’t respectful towards people then most people won’t want to be around you. When you are respectful towards others they are far more likely to be respectful towards you in return. The best relationships are built on mutual respect. This respect compounds and builds over time.

Empathy is the key to unlocking connection. Typically, the people we are able to empathize with the best are the ones we feel naturally drawn to. The trick is to learn to find ways to empathize with everyone. After all, we are all human and by that nature tend to have lots of things in common – even with people who are very different than us. Always be looking for ways to empathize with people and you will be able to make great connections with all kinds of people all the time.

The last piece of the puzzle is compassion. When we have compassion for the suffering of others it brings out our hidden humanity. Everyone suffers. And everyone wants to know that their suffering is valid and worthy of compassion. When you have compassion for others they will come to love you.

Love. That’s what it’s all about. When we are kind, respectful, empathetic, and compassionate towards others we are in a place where love can flourish. Whether we know it or not, real friendships and real loving relationship are filled with kindness, respect, empathy and compassion… they are constantly swirling and engaging. In time, with luck, we can even come to accept one another. And loving people and accepting them exactly as they are, are the finest gifts that we can give.

Be well,

Matthew Vasko

Founder, Century of Compassion

Acceptance, compassion, empathy, kindness, Love, RECK, respect, Tolerance

RECK, Tolerance, Acceptance, and Love

Matthew Vasko

It might seem silly to read this, but I spent almost 15 years developing the concept of RECK (Respect, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness) for All. It’s such a simple concept, and I think some people look at it and say, “Yes, for course we should all treat one another that way.” But that’s part of what took so long. I spent a lot of time debating that which is essential that we need to give to all people, and that which we are realistically able to give to all people.

There are three elements that I’ve strongly considered including or did include in RECK at some point and time. Originally, I included Tolerance. But I discovered that tolerance is a fraught value for many people. Some people think of tolerance as too much to ask. Or maybe that tolerance also included tolerating ugly things like hatred and abuse. For others, they thought we should do better than tolerance; we should truly accept one another. Acceptance in beautiful, but can we accept child abuse for example? No. Most certainly not.

Those are the first two, tolerance and acceptance. The third value is love. Love seems like such a no-brainer for me, because I grew up admiring the teachings for Jesus and his concept of universal love. But the fact of the matter is that some people simply do not know how to love properly. Many people have been harmed by love that seeks to control or manipulate… harmed by forms of love that do harm.

So, here we are… RECK for All. Respect, Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness for all people. I often think of RECK as a pathway to loving people properly. Plus, respect combined with empathy and kindness can lead to greater tolerance and acceptance.

The more I think about it, and the more RECK is tempered in the fires of real world use, the more I feel like it is enough. It is good. Yes, let’s improve our tolerance. Yes, let’s be more accepting of one another. And yes, by all means, let’s make an effort to love one another better… and RECK is the tool we can use to help us achieve those things.

All the best to you,

Matthew Vasko

Founder, Century of Compassion