Same Old
Looking forward to the new year? A fresh start, a new congress, and hopeful vibes from the press. Maybe you’ve made a mental list of resolutions. While we reminisce about a tumultuous year, there’s always a smidgen of hope for better horizons. Isn’t that what New Years Day is about?
In the immortal words of Rocky J. Squirrel, "But that trick never works." Every year, the same thoughts, every year the same old crap. Congress will not magically heal. Health care will not suddenly become affordable. Wages will not become fair, nor businesses equitable. Wars will not stop. Greed and selfishness, thinly disguised by Power Politics, Capitalism and Free Markets (an oxymoron) will continue to rule our planet.
We have learned nothing, Perhaps we will never learn.
Until each individual acknowledges his or her contribution to the mayhem that is humanity, nothing can change for the better. I challenge you to look into your heart this New Years Eve, to try to view in an objective way your actions, motivations, responses and rationalizations. Look at your life as only you can. Be honest with yourself as you ask if during the past year you advanced humanity, expressed empathy, fostered understanding of others, promoted tolerance. If you can say this without lying to yourself, I commend you.
If you say no, then you have only yourself to blame for our world. Humanity is an aggregate of individuals, any reflection of the whole must also reflect upon each of us separately. In order to change our world for the better - and by this I mean a world of peace, health, prosperity for all people - we must each live our lives toward this goal as if we alone can achieve it. Only through a critical mass of people living out the changes they wish to see in the world will humanity ever progress. It takes all of us to stop war, for example, by stopping aggression in ourselves. If you and I resist the conditioned responses we’ve accumulated and forge new ones, we can make a difference.
In some ways we are so advanced. The sum of collected knowledge is astounding. What we have accomplished with this is sometimes wonderful, but all-too-often horrible. Despite this we have much growing to do. Spiritually and socially we’re in our infancy even as we show off our technological sophistication. As a species we’ve grown in only a few ways possible, not all the ways possible. We’re lopsided. If we embrace this truth, keep it close to our hearts, and - most importantly - do something about it, then we can grow in the areas we need. Unless each of us take action, we can expect more of the same out of the new year and every year thereafter.