Months before the Olympics began, people had started to worry about the athletes and fans going to Sochi. With Russia making headlines for laws seen as unfairly targeting the LGBT community and a host of other civil rights issues, all eyes were on Sochi and how they were going to accept their many visitors. It is not unusual for this to happen in America. We pay attention to a country for a few weeks and then we focus on other places, other problems.

Regarding Sochi, Americans instantly became aware of the problems in Russia because the Olympic venue drew our attention while an issue as close to home as gay rights garnered offense from many. Now that the last medal has been awarded and we have moved on from the Olympics, though, there will assuredly be less interest given to homophobic laws in Russia or the poverty-like conditions of Olympic housing. Despite our relative lack of awareness, issues are taking place in different countries every day to which we pay little or no attention.

Any time we talk about what nations are drawing international attention, the first answer is usually a country in the Middle East. Of course, we should be paying attention to what is happening in the Middle East, with Syria torn by civil war, our military presence in Afghanistan about to be decreased and seemingly stalled Iranian talks regarding their nuclear program. However, there are plenty of other counties with struggles, and though their issues may not involve America’s high profile interests, their issues are not necessarily less important.

In countries such as Venezuela and Ukraine, for example, the governments and their respective peoples have been clashing. In Ukraine, the whereabouts of ousted president Viktor Yanukovych are unknown. As for Venezuela, several protesters have been killed by government forces, including Miss Tourism 2013 Genesis Carmona, yet essentially nothing was done about it. Venezuelan opposition leaders have since agreed to sit down with President Nicolas Maduro, hoping a peaceful resolution to two weeks of active demonstrations will be found.

If either of these anti-government protests were to happen in a country that we were paying more attention to, such as Russia during the Olympics, both our professional media outlets and our favorite social media sites would be completely abuzz.

We call ourselves the most powerful country in the world, and we very well might be, but we must keep a strong knowledge of what is happening in the world outside of America to remain that way. If we lose sight of issues happening in Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela or anywhere else on the globe, it can be just as detrimental to this country and the world as it would be to turn our backs on things going on in North Korea or Iran.

Staying informed of the issues at hand in all countries would be ideal, but it is understandable that not everyone is going to know what is happening everywhere. When people are being killed, gang violence is taking over a country or a government is being run by terrorist groups, that is when we should start keeping a closer watch.

It can seem like there is absolutely nothing those of us in the United States can do for many problems around the world. There are other ways to make contributions though, such as donating even a small amount of money to humanitarian efforts.

Not every country can be the “land of the free and home of the brave,” but that does not mean that once our fellow Americans have cleared out of Sochi we should just stop paying attention to Russia or any other country. The Olympics may be over, but we should always be keeping a watchful eye on the world as a whole.