Creative Ways to Make a Statement Without Hurting Anyone

With the overwhelming exhaustion of school shootings and violence in our younger generations today, I am bringing you ways to make a statement, without killing somebody or doing illegal things. Nobody gets hurt with these methods, and you still get your point across and unleash whatever angst you may be harboring or cure your boredom.

Write a novel. Start a blog or website. Start hugging random strangers. Make up slogans and put them on t-shirts. Jump up and down 4000 times. Wash somebody's car. Run a marathon and win. Take apart your TV. Buy some annuals at a garden center and start stomping on them in the parking lot. Break all your crayons. Start lugging around a 200 lb wooden cross you made yourself everywhere you go. Invent a computer program. Attach a dog to a leash and take him for a walk. Stand outside the white house with a picket sign. Learn to play a musical instrument and post some badly recorded music on MySpace. Post flyers of yourself on every bulletin board in the state.

Wear a sandwich board for three weeks straight. Jump into a lake. Swim across the English Channel. Wrap odds and ends up in your house and give it to people as gifts. Write something Bart Simpson-ish on a chalkboard 350 times. Paint a self portrait. Mail a shoe to someone. Sell your nail and hair clippings on E-bay. Super glue trinkets to your car. Get a camcorder and make a movie. Write your congressmen. Pack your suitcase and go somewhere. Vote. Run for a political office. Break a world record for eating the most M & M's. Build a car that runs on water. Find the cure to AIDS and Cancer. Visit someone in the hospital. Watch your neighbor's kids for a day.

Wear nothing but the color orange for 5 years. Start a new religion. Build a bonfire in a field. Invite your friends and party hard. Volunteer at a retirement home. Feed the homeless. Climb a tree. Photograph stupid road signs. Learn to skateboard blindfolded. Pretend you have magical powers and can read people's minds. Give money away to people you don't know. Hand out dum-dums to everyone sitting in a restaurant. Make a mold of your face in jello. Wrestle with someone. Staple a piece of paper 300 times to pass time at work. Write poetry. Memorize pi. Call an attorney and draft a lawsuit. Play poker. Make your own soap and shampoo. Watch someone sleep. Practice your speeches. Use a megaphone to exercise your freedom of speech.

You can bake a cake. Play ping-pong. Go to a batting cage or golf range. Feed bread to ducks and fish. Go camping. Knock on people's doors and ask if you can help them with anything for absolutely free. Make a bet with someone that if you actually do that, at least one person will call the cops on you. Cut up your credit cards. Dye your hair. Then shave your head. Save a whale. Maybe a spotted owl, too. Wear a "Stop Global Warming" sign in a snowstorm. Dig in your backyard for dinosaur bones and buried treasure. Build a life size replica of the Egyptian pyramids out of Lego's. Stand out in a thunderstorm. Watch clouds float by. Eat dandelions and roses. Get a job at McDonald's for three days. Hang upside down from the monkey bars.

Do not kill people or hurt anyone. You might be fed up with society or life, but if you think killing or hurting people will make a statement and change anything, not only are you wrong, you obviously have done no research on the subject.

Terrorists kill thousands of people, kids their classmates, parents their children...the list goes on...and except for being discussed on national TV, it hasn't changed a thing. People will continue to be born and all people eventually die, which means the same problems that have existed since "Adam & Eve" will continue to exist to beyond the time we fly around in spaceships to get to work. If previous acts of violence and the results aren't enough proof that killing and hurting people achieves nothing, you're as equally self centered and ignorant as the people you are trying to get your point across to.

Acts of violence liberate no one. Instead, the reverse is achieved. We have less freedom of speech. Less right to life and the pursuit of happiness. Less right to be ourselves. We have more suffering. More self-centered thoughts and apathy towards others. More greed. More governmental and corporate control.

And for what? So you, too, can be forgotten as the years go by and the acts of violence grow in size and frequency?

You really don't have to do anything horrific to get your point across. Little things count, too. They make a big difference in what happens to you and other people. You have no idea how doing anything, no matter how mundane it might seem, will affect you or someone else. So go ahead - make a statement without killing people. Be creative and you might actually achieve fame, fortune, or nirvana.