In my previous post I asked: Can we live a life worth having? Can we love and enjoy being loved? If we have only one go around then why not find the way to enjoy it and others as best we are able? Can we create a wonderful life and a wonderful world for everyone?
These are questions I find important that we ask ourselves and the purpose of this blog is to help us ask questions that bring us more wonderful results and answers.
I wanted to continue to explore some concepts.
Some people are concerned about problems and issues for themselves and the world.
With so much access to so many difficulties people face in the world, war, poverty, starvation, discrimination, hatred, territorial mentality, them against us, I felt it was time for me to put out there a vehicle, this blog, as a reminder for me, and those who might follow it, to help make the world a more glorious place for all. We can become the change we want to be in the world. We can one do that by one. If we each take responsibility we may change the world but only when we actually try. If we do nothing it will remain the same.
I don’t believe we won’t end war by declaring more war. We won’t end poverty, destitution, poor health, disease or starvation either, or any problem by declaring war on it. That is a tired out useless, political metaphor that has not served us well at all.
We can focus on positive solutions that include, rather than exclude, that clarify rather than obfuscate, and that create more well being and harmony for all when we seek harmony and well being for all.
We will never end problems of not having enough by focusing on not having enough.
We will end these problems when we seek to have all people having plenty.
So much of the world’s issues are political in nature. wWe have wars over resources for profit we always have had these. We have border issues who should be in and who should be kept out. We have some rich people who have it all and others who have nothing. The rich claim the poor want to take it from them. The poor claim the rich are holding them down. We have people who hate other people because of their skin color, their religion, their politics, their gender biases. We have people who hate people because of who they love.
There is lot’s going on. It has been going on forever.
I don’t think the world will ever change when we fight these things the way we have been fighting them.
We give energy to the problem and don’t give much to the solution. Television pundits and legislators spew hate and intolerance. The big and the little voices on the internet point out someone else who is to blame. It is always someone else doing something wrong that is a problem for everyone else. They should be stopped, locked up or shot. It seems the solutions proffered, for the most part, come from hostility, scarcity thinking, fear, and retribution. It is them against us.
The focus is always on the other person, the other nation, the other one who is causing all the bad, or evil and how they need to be severely dealt with. We have war on poverty, drugs, illiteracy, homelessness, the list is endless AND what have we ever solved.
Are we richer, better off, healthier, do more people have homes, use less drugs, read more books? It doesn’t seem to be the case. We still have right against left accusing each other of overspending, underspending, grift, self interest, fraud, cover-ups and more. Frankly, it is not bound to end anytime soon.
Some people think we need a unifying event. A world calamity, aliens revealed before we all come together as the single species we are and work together for the benefit of all. I am not sure even that would help as most likely we would declare war on the aliens too.
So what do I think might help? I am not sure what the answers are that would please anyone. I don’t think you can provide a single answer. I do think that we have tried big dramatic things with little or no results. I am not sure any of us are ultimately better off for any war the world’s people have engaged in, though I am certain you will find proponents for each of them.
I don’t think declaring war and doing what we have done, threatening, drawing lines in the sand, getting tough, you know we need tough love or tougher approaches, has worked very well either.
Certainly, in some cases we are better off in some ways for some attempts while in other cases, in other ways we are worse off because of some attempts. It is never clear cut, it is never absolutely one way or the other. This kind of thinking seems to be part of the problem.
‘There is a knat problem here hall out the bazookas and blast them.’ Not only do we use overkill, but the saying ‘if you only have a hammer you treat everything as a nail’ seems to apply to many of us and to many of those in power. We try the same approach on everyone and everything.
My approach is a bit different. I believe we are better served inching our way toward what we want and making positive incremental changes good for most everyone that to try caustic dramatic measures that leave damage in its wake.
Who the heck would come up with a term like ‘collateral damage’ EXCEPT to make it palatable and acceptable. It isn’t in any case.
So why am I a proponent for positive thinking. I thought you would never ask and I might never get around to it.
Here is why:
When you make your life incredible and fill it with joy and love and peace and harmony you are too busy having a good time to wish others ill will. When you live from fulness and abundance you don’t have to horde or fear that someone else may get your share.
When you manifest your dreams and discover the joys of this world and you wish the same for others the world becomes a better place because the people in it wish well for all.
If you can be positive others can be too.
Let me make a base argument here if I may. If I am having incredible sex with someone I am not trying to prevent anyone else in the building from doing the same at the same time. It is only when someone else has something we want that it becomes an problem.
If every atom of your being is radiating with light and love and fulfillment you won’t be causing anyone else any trouble.
It seems much of this world, the issues, can be boiled down to this simplistic way to think – I don’t have what they have and I want theirs so I will take it OR someone is after what I have and I won’t let them take it.
I mean really isn’t that the bottom line. We want their land, food, water, oil, money, resources or whatever because then we will be better off or we fear that someone is after what we have and will rob us of it. Whether we are robbed at gun point or through social welfare someone will take from us what we think is ours.
The neighbor has a better car, boat, house, husband or wife and we feel bad. Their kids are smarter or better looking and we feel bad. It we compare all the time in a one up one down fashion we are bound to not feel well much of the time. There will always be those who have more. SO WHAT?
No matter how many times it is pointed out you can not take it with you we still act as what we have is actually ours.
Maybe we would be far better off world wide if we realized we are on borrowed time and all these ‘things’ we only get to enjoy temporarily. They do not belong to us.
Maybe, instead of acting as if we are entitled to anything we should act as temporary stewards and protectors of all these things.
I am all for people having as much wealth as they can accumulate. I do think the world is abundant but I don’t find hording all the wealth a good thing. I think it is important to realize we are all in this together.
People claim they worked hard for their money. True, some have. Still, no one makes it alone. If you worked hard to manufacture and advertise widgits and you made a fortune you did not do it alone. Scores of people helped all along the way from idea to consumer. Everyone is partly responsible for your success. To think otherwise is RCV vision. RCV stands for rectal canal vision or it means you have your head up…
We are all in it together. Some play harder than others, some seem not to be in the game hardly at all, but we are all here together. Seems to me we ought to figure out BY THIS TIME how to get along and play nice.
To exclude anyone for any reason seems wrong to me. We hear the tales of old of pillaging and raping and killing villagers to get the spoils and we still do this today in other lands, in our own lands and neighborhoods and to our environment. We horde and scar and waste.
Why might this be? I think greed and fear. If you are afraid there won’t be enough to survive or thrive or WHATEVER you act differently than when you know there is plenty. When you are physically starving you may take drastic measures to insure your survival AND I UNDERSTAND THAT. That makes a lot of sense. Your survival mechanism kicks in and you may do anything you might otherwise not do.
Fight or Flight in the jungle, the real jungle or the urban jungle makes sense. Predatory beasts seeking food might eat you. So you either flee if you can or you fight to survive. You do whatever you think will maximize your chances.
The problem is we live in a world where there IS actually enough for everyone even though our populations have swelled, yet, political forces have prevented people from having access to food, clean water, energy, territory, resources, money you name it. The greedy have divided up the world. You wouldn’t do that unless you were just basically greedy or you feared their would not be enough for you. Yes, yes, some want world domination I am sure.
The bottom line is much of the accumulation comes from fear in some form. If you aren’t afraid and you know everything is plentiful you don’t have to act as you have been acting.
It may seem trivial to state the obvious, these people do these horrible things because they either think they have to or because they think it is enjoyable. Yes, I reduced it to a couple choices, I know,
When you think about it people are fighting for what they believe is scare. How would most of us know if anything is actually scares. You have direct experience with it. The poor person starving in some country because their government won’t let them eat or produce food has direct access. The rest of us only hear about it. BUT because we hear about it we may think that is true everywhere. We may over generalize and think food stocks are scare in many places. We may then start to horde because of the impending zombie apocalypse and create fall out shelters and arm ourselves so that if our neighbors needs some food we can shoot them too.
The problem as I see it is things, thinking get exaggerated and blow into fears. I suspect some people want us to be afraid for their own purposes, or divided and at odds about anything, doesn’t matter what we argue about, just that we argue.
It’s just that if we think the other person is the enemy, then we will never unite, never come together or collaborate, we will never be cohesive and accomplish anything. Maybe, it doesn’t require anyone orchestrating this at all, maybe it is just what we end up doing all on our own because of our thinking.
So I believe our thinking needs adjustment more than the real world out there needs adjustment. OR said differently, I believe that if we think better, smarter, wiser, more optimistically we will get better results because we may find better methods for improving our world than all those we have tried unsuccessfully so far.
I am a proponent for thinking that the more power you have the more responsibility you have. I think we should be accountable for our actions and want to create a better place for all. I think we should seek to find ways to make more pies instead of dividing up the ones we have. There is plenty for everyone but not in the minds of all. In some minds, and they may be very poor or very rich, they seem to think that there is not enough, or that they must fight to get everything they can. See you can be very rich and have a very poor mentality.
People who are carving up the world and the lives of others aren’t operating from the highest intentions, the most positive frames of mind. They aren’t thinking what is good for the goose IS ALSO good for the gander so lets spread it around. IT IS precisely the mindset that IS the issue. It is how we think and what we think that makes all the difference.
Do any of us think we would be facing many of the problems we do if everyone had embraced the ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you’ philosophy? Would we have any of these issues if we all adopted the love your brother, turn the cheek, forgive and take care of the least of these… ?
My guess is we would not. Hey, I am not spouting religion here I am making a point. If we all had a better positive mind set and philosophy might not we all be better off? Would we have violated the planet and each other if we loved and cared for the planet and each other? I think not.
Still, someone is bound to be saying right now, ‘wow yeah, fer sure, but not everyone thinks like that, there will always be self centered greedy asses, there will always be poor people, there will always be problems…’ and yes there will be. The fact that there is opposition to our thinking doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think it.
What it means to me is that I am responsible to me.
I want to have the best life and best of everything possible.
I want everything I can lay claim to but not at the point of depriving others what they too could have. If we ever got down to the ‘last cookie scenario’ I’d like to think I would be willing to share it with whomever is huddling in the bunker with me. If it were my kids they would absolutely get it. I would go without.
As many parents I love my kids I want the best for them. In a situation such as that they would get my share of the cookie. Yes, I also understand the notion of putting on you breathing mask first in the plane as it plummets before helping your child, so that you might actually BE ABLE TO help your child.
Nothing is cut and dried. I certainly don’t have an ultimate answer. I do not propose to solve any of the world’s problems. What I hope to do is inspire people to be kinder and gentler to themselves and more accepting of others and circumstances.
We haven’t yet actually embraced the notion that all the people on this planet ARE exactly the equivalent of a group of people in a life boat on the ocean. We haven’t have, have we? We are though, traveling through space on a vehicle too vast to realize we are all in it (on it) together. We are all, every single one of us, traveling in the exact same direction at the very same time.
We are all in the boat, whether at sea or in space.
Doesn’t it make sense that at some point in time we will have to figure out how to best get along and distribute our resources to maximize our time alive.
The key for me, AND BELIEVE ME, I know and understand the limitations of examples and analogies, they serve a useful purpose but they never address all the counter points that could be brought up, they are imperfect vehicles, as I am, the key for me is to be nicer to self and others while we have the opportunity.
Maybe, just maybe, one by one we will change the world. Maybe we won’t. We never will if we do nothing that is guaranteed. So I think things do go better with positivity. I do think we are better off when we think about what we may do to make our life and the lives of others better. I think we would all best be served by wanting to make sure the planet was better off. It is simple, instead of taking always, we gave something first.
If everyone decided to always leave another person better off than when we encountered the person we would be mutually benefiting each other in win/win ways. I am all for starting small, doing things we can do a little bit each day.
Some people on January 1 join a gym with the intention of working out and getting healthy. They have every intention, but then life, appointments, family or other things take precedence. Unused gym memberships is a multi-million dollar business. They get caught up or they over do at the start and they are sore and have to take off time to recover or it is just too much on their plate and so they stop.
It would be better if they found some small exercise they could do at home, work or the office, even the car that they could repeat through each day of the week, then to do nothing at all. They would make progress more slowly it is true, but much more quickly than no progress at all.
Yes, for me it is ALL ABOUT mind set. Everything begins with a thought. Every human invention or endeavor is the result of some one and others thinking about it, conceiving it and bringing it to be.
Napoleon Hill said, ‘If you can conceive it and believe it you can achieve it’
I don’t think our issue is as much being able to conceive it as one might think. I think plenty of us can conceive of a more loving, kind, peaceful world where all get along and have plenty.
Still, I am sure there a countless numbers who can not imagine it. If you can’t imagine it how could you ever bring it about. You couldn’t because you wouldn’t even know it as possible. So yes, some can conceive it, others can’t.
I think the bigger opportunity for us is believing it. You see, there are those who can’t conceive it and hence don’t even entertain believing it because it is outside their awareness. Never enters their minds.
THEN, there are those who can and DO conceive of it and dream of a better world but just can’t bring themselves to believe it is possible. It is beyond their ability to believe it.
Finally, there are those who can conceive of it and who are able to believe it. They believe there can be a better world. Fewer in number though, I am sure.
If we think getting everyone to conceive and believe it IS impossible it certainly will be.
If we focus on what we don’t have and where the trouble is that isn’t going to help.
So the question is: What do we do, what can we do to get more people on the same positive page each day?
What actions can we individually take, and together take, that will result in more of us able to conceive of a better world, and believe that we can create it no matter what opposition we face?
What can I do to make the world a better place today?
What can I do to make another’s life better?
What can I do today to make my life better?
I started with the world and brought it back to WHAT CAN I DO.
I think the questions we ask IS the starting place.
Good positive questions can help us find answers. We have to begin.
We have to ask wise and useful questions – a better class of questions to guide us toward what we ultimately want.
It is easy to say no, to claim never, and to do nothing. It is another thing to stay open to possibility. I don’t think we change the world all at once, people have tried through various means. They are still trying and we are still being inundated by their attempts.
While terrible things occur, there are wonderful things occurring too.
The world is smaller today because of media and we have immediate access to all the woes of the world 24/7. Now, more than ever. In the past are were influenced by bad news much more slowly as it traveled by word of mouth over great distances. Later newspapers informed groups of people eventually becoming a faster news source. Then radio, then television, now all of those plus the internet. impinge on us daily.
We can’t escape bad news. It is on TV, streaming, internet, Facebook, twitter, you name it is spreads virally like wild fire. Nothing travels as fast as bad news. Still, there is good news in the world. We should remember that. Actually, maybe we should focus on that more than the bad news. Have you considered that? Maybe the world ISN’T as bad as we are lead to believe.
As I have mentioned, it is not about ignoring that which needs changing, but it is about becoming more intelligent how we go about changing it.
One of the things we need to do is to determine what we want to pay attention to and what we want to be influenced by. I don’t isolate myself from news, some people do, but I aim my mind at finding the best I can in a bad situation. I spend most of my time seeking out the cool wonderful things to pay attention to and appreciate rather than the bad things. I want more good stuff and less bad stuff AND I want the bad stuff to get resolved in positive ways.
What to do? For me, I decided, the least I could do was get my own house in order. Get my positive mind set on. I think if I can discover that the world is an incredible place with enough for everyone maybe someone else can too.
It all begins with a thought and it all begins with me. It is up to each of us to recognize that. So while I asked those questions earlier from what can I do to improve the world to what can I do to improve me the actual effective order is from smaller to larger, from local to global. Take care of your own home first, then neighborhood, the community and so on.
What started out yesterday, as a short statement to say hope you enjoy the blog, it is not written expertly, morphed into this longer post about why the blog.
The purpose of this blog is to spread a little joy and possibility thinking each and everyday.
Hopefully, some will read something I share and then and recognize something good about themselves that they may have forgotten. Perhaps, someone will find more things to appreciate and be grateful for. Maybe someone will aim toward something higher, or set an important goal and take steps toward attaining it.
The blog hopefully, will help the reader recognize the good things that make the reader a valuable person. I hope it will provide for each of us a thought or inspiration that may wake us up to a new positive possibilities in us and around us.
I hope it becomes food for us to make ourselves, others and the world around us just a little bit more wonderful each day. We can do it bite by bite.” Rex Sikes
Have a wonderful day!
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