We Can Sit Idly By Or We Can Jump In

Humans have the collective wisdom and intellect to make more informed choices and decisions regarding our shared land and the quality of living we want to have. Together we can address the climate crisis and even regard it as an opportunity to protect and restore our earth and ourselves. The question before us is not whether we are trapped by limited natural, financial, or intellectual resources. Rather, the future and fate of our human condition are a question of whether we have the required moral judgment, leadership, personal accountability, and political will to prevail to solve the crisis. The climate is changing. Are we also willing to change? Ironically, during the 2007–2008 time frame the world also went through an unprecedented financial crisis. Friedman’s observations of ’08 have turned out to be perennial and intensifying. In the past ten years, the trials and tribulations of being human have only intensified. Humans are resilient. Over thousands of years of practice, we have cultivated a unique skill and knack for survival. Our reality is that our world is closing in on us. As intelligent as humans are, we continue to do stupid things.

Over The Wall We Go

They care for nothing and nobody but themselves. They justify their existence believing it is within their human right be egocentric. I want to illuminate the simple idea that if we look beyond our selfish needs, we might discover a world filled to the brim with a wealth of love, kindness, happiness, and opportunity. It is up to each of us to find a way to live life with a sense of purpose, passion, dignity, and resolve. I believe each of us is here for a reason. There can be adventure, joy, hope, and humility in discovering that reason. To get there, you have to look both inside yourself to understand your fears, motivations, needs, and desires. To guarantee your future I believe you have to be willing to decode your past and optimize your present state of being. To accomplish this requires an ability to ground yourself in a way that your mind and consciousness can separate your true self from your ego. Your reason for being can be felt through deliberate meditation and mindfulness, but ultimately, it is awakened and put to use by the act of doing. When your true self shines, it’s often because you’ve engaged in a conviction of your purpose for being alive. That only happens when your true self is aligned with your service.

Are You Ready?

Your service can be to your family, community, faith, career, and other individuals or organizations. But what’s important is that your good intentions drive the behavior, not what we call our ego. We are all here on Earth to survive. Yet some of us are positioned much better from birth to survive and live much more freely and fluidly than others. For those of us lucky enough to be born healthy and free, and nourished and loved, let us give thanks for that miracle. For others who from the moment they enter the world are overwhelmed with disease or endangered by oppression and fighting for dear life for their survival, let’s pray they can be with us another hour, day, month, or year and improve their condition. There is no time for guilt, fear, anger, or passing blame for our human condition. Life is far too precious and fickle for any of us to waste time or energy worrying about circumstance outside of our control. For we can, through service to others, enrich their lives as well as our own. Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. This is an ugly reality for humanity.

Easy For You To Say

Abuse is atrocious and can take many forms. It can also be outlandish and blatant or subtle and silent. Although abuse can be manifested in many forms, it is often subject to broader human rights issues such as social inequality, racial discrimination, a system of slavery, and other persecution and torture based on religion or nationality. As troubling as abuse is, the politicization of abused individuals or groups of peoples is even more disturbing. Unfortunately, that is exactly what continues to occur in the United States and in other countries of the world when economic, social, religious, environmental, or political factions and issues prolong human rights abuses. In 2018 the Trump administration instituted a zero tolerance policy for enforcing border crossings along the southwest board of the United States and Mexico. This arcane and cruel policy resulted in more than 2,300 children separated from their parents over just a few months’ time. As public outcry in the United States and abroad magnified, it began to weigh down on the Trump administration. Now, try to remove, just for a moment, your personal opinion on immigration policy, border security, human and drug trafficking, and any other issue or excuse you want to put out in front of this ugly American event. Anyone who has a pulse, whether you have children or not, inherently knows how horrifying it is to separate children from their parents. Imagine children as young as newborns and infants separated from their mothers, particularly under the pretense and uncertain circumstances in which this abhorrent act occurred. Now put yourself in the shoes of a refugee trying to reach a promised land of freedom and opportunity only to realize a proverbial wall is the worst of your worries. Everything you have traveled and fought for, the promise of opportunity for your children and family, ripped apart and divided. These individuals want freedom so badly that they are willing to risk their family’s prosecution, separation, and detainment. Yet, here we are, 244 years after the United States became a nation brought together by a group of foreign outsiders, witnessing America the great willfully separate children and families under a rule of law. America, built upon a foundation of human rights, democracy, and independence, was showing the world that it does not fall in line with the ideals that actually make this country great.