“Air Force failure enabled Texas gunman to obtain firearms,” “How U.S. compares to rest of world when it comes to gun homicides,” “Man killed in brazen triple shooting near Baltimore police station.” These top headlines can be found in the Washington Post, USA Today, and The Baltimore Sun respectively during the past week. But what do each of these headlines have in common?

Each of these gruesome headlines deal with a very real topic in our society today: violence. According to the New York Times, “violent crimes increased nationally last year by 4.1 percent and homicides rose by 8.6 percent.”

Violence plays a serious role in our world today, and it isn’t always on a national or even global level. Some forms of violence can take place locally or even in our own school community, such as bullying or destroying school property.

We as human beings have great capabilities. We have the ability to love, be kind, and care for one another. We also, however, have the ability to be destructive, to harm one another, and to promote a community that is less than peaceful.

Why then, are many people choosing the path of destructiveness? Despite doing research and reading many articles, I couldn’t find the answer to this question.

I even ventured out asking other students what they thought, and I couldn’t find a clear answer to the essential question about what’s happening in our society today. I found varying answers to my question ranging from the hypothesis that our society is becoming desensitized with violence to politics and even global warming.

But these answers didn’t seem to give a good reason why people are choosing brutality over love. Although it may sound naive, I believe that we can change our society and the environment we live in. I challenge everyone to do random acts of kindness each day to promote love.

These acts can be as involved as helping with the school’s Romero Service Club or as simple as opening a door for someone when you get to school.

Recently, when I was walking into school, another student went out of his way to hold the door open for me, and when I thanked him walking inside, he took the time to say “Have a nice day.” This act not only made me smile, but put me in a good mood for the rest of my day. Efforts to promote positive acts can go a long way.

Rather than continuing to read about violence and destruction, we have the power to change and instead should strive to promote the good, not the bad. If we all stand up and endeavor to promote love, we may be able to read headlines about acts of kindness and society’s change for the better.

Taylor Bynion is the Copy Chief for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.