Policymakers are not the change makers. Because policymakers can't make policy unless we allow them.

We all exist in a time of widespread exponential growth. We are busier than ever. When things pile sky-high on top of each other, I try to take a moment to: breathe, smile, repeat. This mantra helps me align to the reality outside of the superfluous noise.

I wanted to take part in this campaign because it's so easy to forget the many women who live their lives in fear because of domestic violence. Men have an important role to play in sending out the message that real men do not hurt or abuse their partners.

We ultimately have to find truth in the material, and I think that transfers onto the screen. Obviously there's varying degrees of it, and we don't get it right all the time [laughs], but I think when it feels grounded, it's because we recognize the truth in the material.

I feel vulnerable when I have no choice. It segues into every facet of life, whether it's love, work, family, or conservation. Here it is: the whole reason that I started the Ian Somerhalder Foundation was the feeling of complete vulnerability during the BP oil spill.

I learned that Canadians are furious because Canada is exporting water to the United States. Their lakes are shrinking because they're selling water to the U.S. We water our golf courses and every ice cream shop and every coffee shop in the country because the health inspector has said you have to have a steady stream of water cleaning your spoons that you're frothing milk with and their ice cream scoopers. Are you kidding me? We're wasting all this water while we're sucking it from Canada and they're watching their lakes shrink?

The youth have a prodigious talent for inventing progressive ideas and alternative courses of action that elude the jaded, in-the-box minds of worn-down adults.