Love Yourself.

I love _________ about myself…...

A sentence that we don’t hear often enough. Living in a “selfie-crazed” society - my Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages are full of the hashtags- “selfie”, “outfit of the day”, and “no filter” where people are measuring their self worth by how many ‘likes’ they receive per picture. Granted, I am guilty of the occasional selfie, but I try to limit them to important moments in my life and, at times, I probably over share with my followers. Yet, I know that I am a confident and complete woman without the acceptance of those who ‘like’ my photos. Social media, like many other things in this world, can be used for both good and evil. It gives us an outlet to express our creativity and share our exciting outfit successes with our friends and followers, while it also opens the door to bullies and predators. Instead of teaching the next generation how to pose for the perfect selfie, why don’t we teach them to embrace who they are and share with the world what they love about themselves?

I believe that our world is entirely too affected by the Hollywood stars that we try and model
ourselves after. Instead of letting stars like Miley Cyrus and Kim Kardasian be role models for young girls, and unrealistic characters for young men to see as ‘real’ women, we need to empower our youth to embrace their own individuality and be their own kind of beautiful. Love is a word that is tossed around like candy but rarely do we ever use it when speaking about ourselves. I could write a book about the many imperfect things about myself… but what is perfect? Each person is perfectly imperfect and that is what makes each of us truly beautiful. We are all different in our own rights and are given such a wonderful opportunity to live our lives and hopefully touch the lives of others along the way. So I invite you all to join me in shouting what you LOVE about yourself? Ready? Set….Go!

Hello World!

In a society where news and media fill our televisions, social media accounts and radio stations with horror stories of war, inequality, protest and uproar, it is easy to let a generalized negativity dictate our ways of thinking. Now don’t get me wrong, I believe it is extremely important to educate ourselves on current events and the state of our nation, but I also believe that if we don’t make a change in the way we are living, we are heading down a very slippery slope.

I would like to think of myself as both an optimist and a realist. I understand that our world cannot be perfect and that the cliché pageant ideal of “world peace” may seem to many as an unrealistic expectation, but who says we shouldn’t try? As the ever inspiring Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world," and I would say he hit the nail on the head. Some major issues that we face everyday could be resolved if we each took the initiative to make the change. Bullying, rape, violence, self-criticism, racism, gender inequality and so many other issues make up the majority of what we repeatedly hear on our local news stations, but who can change that? WE CAN!

Obviously these are issues that I am very passionate about and what drove me to adopte my personal platform, The Foundation for a Better Life, so that I could start taking steps toward making an impact in my local area. This organization is a non-profit organization that encourages people, young and old, to hold themselves accountable for their own actions and to develop a set of personal values that they will strive to live by. I believe that in order to change the world, and the people in it, we must stress the importance of character education starting at a very early age. Some simple words that we would like to think are parts of our daily language are actually ideals that we tend to take for granted. Words such as, love, determination, ambition, charity, class, equality and gratitude are both words and ideals that could, in fact, change the world.

I could rant for days about how much I LOVE this organization which is exactly why I started this blog. Posting about issues that I believe need to be addressed and hopefully introducing this organization to a broader audience in an attempt to use my voice so that I may ‘be the change’ that I wish to see in the world. I implore you all to follow along, share your stories, and post your opinions on this movement that stresses the importance of character education through Values.com and my personal blog.

Remember, in order to change the world we must STAND UP and STAND OUT, even if that means STANDING ALONE.

To learn more about The Foundation For a Better Life please visit, Values.com.

-With sincere GRATITUDE, LOVE, and “World Peace”

Kacy Kay