Words to live by

I love how you can find almost anything you're looking for on the Internets.

I was in a meeting yesterday and the woman I was meeting with had this wonderful poster on her wall, titled "How to build a global community." I loved what it said and wondered if I might find the text somewhere online. Sure enough...

I wanted to share this with you all. I don't know the origins of this text, but these are, in my mind, words to live by:

• Think of no one as "them"
• Don't confuse your comfort with your safety
• Talk to strangers
• Imagine other cultures through their poetry and novels
• Listen to music you don't understand
• Dance to it
• Act locally
• Notice the workings of power and privilege in your culture
• Question consumption
• Know how your lettuce and coffee are grown: wake up and smell the exploitation
• Look for fair trade and union labels
• Help build economies from the bottom up
• Acquire few needs
• Learn a second (or third) language
• Visit people, places and cultures -- not tourist attractions
• Learn people's history
• Re-define progress
• Know physical and political geography
• Play games from other cultures
• Watch films with subtitles
• Know your heritage
• Honor everyone's holidays
• Look at the moon and imagine someone else, somewhere else, looking at it too
• Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Understand the global economy in terms of people, land and water
• Know where your bank banks
• Never believe you have a right to anyone else's resources
• Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination
• Question military/corporate connections
• Don't confuse money with wealth, or time with money
• Have a pen/email pal
• Honor indigenous cultures
• Judge governance by how well it meets all people's needs
• Be sceptical about what you read
• Eat adventurously
• Enjoy vegetables, beans and grains in your diet
• Choose curiosity over certainty
• Know where your water comes from and where your wastes go
• Pledge allegiance to the earth: question nationalism
• Think South, Central and North -- there are many Americans
• Assume that many others share your dreams
• Know that no one is silent though many are not heard.
• Work to change this.