“You have to be the change you want to see in the world.” It doesn’t matter who said it first. Gandhi or Arlene Lorrance. Makes no difference. The idea is to embody the better way. If you don’t want to be cut off in traffic, don’t cut off other people. If you don’t like seeing litter on the highway, don’t throw crap out your window. That’s the “Thou Shalt Not…” version. The affirmative is simply if you want people to be friendly towards you, smile more. If you want to earn people’s respect, show respect to them first.
As a microeconomics aficionado I drilled down one step further with my kids. I told them that they have to be the change that they want to see in themselves. Kind of a nicer way of saying “fake it til you make it.” My daughter was called the “shy girl” in elementary school. When we moved to a different state at the start of middle school, she made an effort to overcome her innate shyness. She was the change that she wanted to be. Change is hard. It feels weird or foreign or like we’re being fake, but given time we become what we do every day. We are our habits. (Aristotle, Jane Austen, or Batman, again doesn’t matter.)
The ultimate goal of life is progress. Am I better today than I was yesterday? How can I be better tomorrow than I was today? Only you know. Only you can Be The Change for you.