37 Ways to Put Love in the World

Just about every evening, our dinner conversation turns toward the contentious times that plague the world around us. Protests and fraud and hateful middle schoolers make us all want to throw up our hands in disgust. We're just three people. What can we do? It is at this point, I can be counted on to say, "we just need to keep putting love in the world." I say it so much, the others have begun to preempt my announcement. They even think about it when making the millions of little decisions that take them through the day.

Since this strategy has just got to work eventually, especially if enough of us do it, I've compiled a list. Here are 37 Ways to Put Love in the World, complete with a few friendly driving suggestions:

1. Smile



2. Use your manners
3. Share what you love
4. Don’t share what you hate
5. Keep your thoughts positive
6. Only use your horn to alert other drivers of danger
7. Use a safe following distance
8. Give other people a break
9. Hold open a door
10. Pack your own groceries at the checkout
11. Build people up
    
12. Don’t point out flaws
13. Limit your media consumption
14. Don’t overcommit
15. Manage your stress
    

    

    Sometimes stress is best managed with hot fudge ice cream cake.

    
    
16. Clean up after yourself
17. Don’t litter
18. Wave to your neighbors
19. Help when a coworker is overwhelmed
20. Yield at crosswalks
21. Drive slowly in parking lots
22. Give yourself a break
23. Leave 15 minutes early for appointments
24. Calm down
25. Don’t yell
26. Don’t swear
27. Use your talents to help someone in need
28. Listen
29. Don’t insult people’s intelligence
30. Don’t use mental illness as a put-down
31. Be patient
32. Support a good cause
33. Make someone laugh
    
    
    via GIPHY
    
    
34. Have a friend proofread contentious emails/text messages to be sure your point comes through without a nasty tone
35. Accept that you’re rarely the one that supposed to enforce the rules
36. Instead of thinking about what “they” should do differently, figure out what you can do to fix the problems you see around you
37. Always take a number at the deli counter, even if it seems like you don’t need it.

Initially, I thought this list would go all the way to 100, but my ideas started to get pretty repetitive. Can you help me? What are some everyday ways you put love into the world?