Growing up here in Hawaii, I loved swimming, surfing, and having fun in this paradise we are lucky to call home. But I gradually realized that I was actually happiest when I was doing things for other people, doing things to protect our water, oceans, and beaches.

We need to stop judging individuals based on their race, profession, gender, religion, or anything other than their own individual behavior and character.

The divisiveness that threatens the fabric of our nation - whether due to race, religion, political ideology, gender, sexual orientation, or other - must end.

When a person thinks, I am a Christian, this other person is a Muslim, therefore he is my enemy, or I am a Muslim, this other person is a Hindu, therefore she is my enemy, they reveal their own lack of spiritual depth. No religion teaches this, and any understanding of any religion that adopts this divisive attitude proves itself false by doing so.