Original article published on Elephant Journal.

You only need to scroll through Facebook to get the vibe of the nation right now.

Another mass shooting is shaking our country. People are blaming Trump, guns, the school, and sometimes the shooter’s family.

Blame, blame, blame.

There is rage flowing through social media. Neighbors fighting neighbors, “friends” posting outrageous remarks to one another. Egos flying wild. People so self-righteous about how things should change or be the way they see fit.

Everyone is angered, and deservedly so. 

Children have been murdered! Young lives have been wiped off this earth, like innocent lambs to a sacrifice…but for what? Their families have forever been destroyed and torn apart, never to be the same.

So who is to blame?

I say, all of us.

Every single last one of us is to blame––but does blame do any good? Does it bring the children back? Does it un-cry all the tears? Does it mend all of the hearts that have been broken?

No, it does not. So what are we to do?

The same reason we are all to blame is the same reason it will take all of us to make this right. If you think your vote is going to make things change any time soon, you are mistaken. If you wait for Congress, Republicans, or Democrats to fix this, you can be sure more lives will be lost before that happens.

Instead of sitting behind our computers spewing more hate into the world, we have to ask ourselves what are we doing to make this better? Are ours posts on Facebook really producing any change? Is telling our Republican neighbors to go f*ck off doing anything other than creating more divide, more hate?

All the memes telling us to pray and “send light” may help us sleep better at night, but it’s not doing much else.

Children are dying, and we are right to say that things need to change. Yet, is us who need to change.

We need to become more active in our communities. We need to be kinder to our neighbors and our families. We need to bring the circle in and stop looking out.

If we want to see a kinder world, it has to start with you and me. Not five states away, but with the man standing in front of us at the grocery store. Everyone is always expecting someone else to fix the problems of the world.

This is our world.
Ours.
We are responsible for it.
All of it.

Instead of using Facebook and other social media platforms as soap boxes to preach what we think is right, let us use it as a place to come together and comfort each other, to start fundraisers to help those who have lost so much, to be a place to share videos and articles that may help to open up closed hearts, or give guidance to those who are lost.

Instead of sharing fake news and hate, let’s share more articles that help educate and inspire. It may be called Facebook, but it is Ourbook. We are the ones who create the content and share the posts. Think before you post, like, or share. Is what you’re sharing of benefit to the world?

Hate breeds hate.

No blaming will bring those children back. Anger is just a broken heart in disguise, and there are many broken hearts after this recent shooting. This latest in a long line of shootings. What will change this time? Imagine the impact we could have on the world if all of us took responsibility for these losses.

Where have we gone wrong, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as a society? Where is the unity? We shouldn’t be asking where he got the gun, we need to be asking why did a 19-year-old feel this was what he had to do? Why did he have no one to turn to, no one to help him make a better decision that day?

Where were we as parents, teachers, friends, and neighbors?

Were we too busy posting hate on our computers and phones? Perhaps. Too busy to notice the signs? It’s possible. To self-absorbed to be kind? I think so.

They may not have been our children who died, but we all suffer when we cannot see that they were a part of us, as a whole. It is up to us to fix this. No gun law, Congress, or armed teacher is going to stop the next mass shooting.

Only we can do that—by being vigilant, kind, and educated. All of us.

If we want to see change, it has to start with us.

Write back soon, love Annie