I ran across the quote, "Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness." It stopped me. I read it a couple times, and I thought about the recent events in Paris.  It may be easy for us to quickly forget about atrocities that are happening around the world, and move along in our lives like these things don’t affect us. Do we so easily dismiss these things because we feel like there is nothing we can do to make a difference?

During my time as a police officer, I had started to believe that no matter what I did, I wasn't making a difference. I would get called to the same domestic disturbances – mostly family fights - with the same people. I would deal with the same troubled kids over and over, and nothing was getting better. I would see the same homeless people day in and out.

I had to turn off the emotional part of myself to be able to understand and deal with the everyday suffering people go through. The problem with turning off a part of myself, is that it wasn’t sustainable, and I became someone I didn't like.

The expectation is that a police officer has to be tough and strong, and that you can't show weakness in any shape or form. An officer can’t crumble when dealing with a conflict or a stressful situation; you have to push through whatever comes your way.

After years and years of this, I became callous and hard to the world, and had no patience for anyone else's suffering.

But how do we start to create change? We have to start with ourselves. We have to look inward before we can look outward for answers. Here are four ways you can create change for the greater good.

Showing that you have a heart, and care for others takes courage. It is not a sign of weakness. Tragedies will continue to happen; it's inevitable, we need to look at them, not turn away, and know that we can make a difference every single day.

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