There’s Still Good in This World
"There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for."
— Samwise Gamgee, The Two Towers
When the whole world seems to spiral out of control and into darkness, we can always fall back on this line from The Lord of the Rings. It dares to say: there’s something good. And it’s worth our effort to do everything in our power to pursue it.
If you have options to choose from, choose the one that has the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. Very few decisions can please everyone, so we'd better settle on the next best thing, right? Make things just a bit better for those around us, because that's likely the one thing we have control over.
The greatest stories are built around this exact idea. Think about Frodo and the Fellowship. They watched the world go dark around them. Even Frodo himself was eventually consumed by this darkness — but his Fellowship (and especially Sam, of course) never gave up on him. And that made all the difference.
Or look at Harry Potter. He also didn't have to fight evil all on his own. He had Ron, Hermione, Luna, Neville — all these people who carried him when things got bad. Together, they pushed back.
Even in our real world, some of history’s worst times eventually came to an end because people chose to resist. An alliance of nations stood stronger than one dictator's mad dreams.
It’s sometimes hard to hold onto hope. Difficult, yes — but impossible, it is not (thanks, Yoda).
We are the architects of our own decisions. And those decisions can be good. For ourselves, but even more so for the ones around us.
We just need to remember the Sam that lives inside all of us.