Happy New Year?
When December gives way to January, and the end of one year leads to the beginning of another, people always voice the usual hopes and make the usual resolutions. Every year brings a new promise of bold progress in human affairs, but that promise is never fulfilled. It seems that, year after year, the human condition sinks deeper into a quagmire of war, greed, deprivation, suffering, and falsehood.
If this malign pattern is ever to change, each of us must embrace a more active view of the world. Instead of merely looking to our so-called leaders, who are concerned only with serving the evil interests of their corporate masters, we must look to ourselves. The common decisions that fill our daily lives, decisions that too frequently are made without any thought, have a much greater effect on our own future, and on the future of mankind, than the outcome of any election.
Every moment of every day, every person makes a choice: to be kind or to be unkind, to be unselfish or to be selfish, to be honest or to be dishonest, to be thoughtful or to be thoughtless, to be aware or to be unaware, to be peaceable or to be violent. Everyday, every person chooses, within the context of every passing situation, either to mutely accept the world as it is, or to stand up and speak out for the necessity of creating a better world.
Each of us chooses, whether knowingly or unknowingly, to live either in a useless state of weakness and compliance, or in a purposeful state of strength and resistance. That fundamental choice, which has the power to define our being and govern our fate, can be made one way or the other, but a thoroughgoing renewal of the mind and the spirit will not result from choosing the easy way.
If this malign pattern is ever to change, each of us must embrace a more active view of the world. Instead of merely looking to our so-called leaders, who are concerned only with serving the evil interests of their corporate masters, we must look to ourselves. The common decisions that fill our daily lives, decisions that too frequently are made without any thought, have a much greater effect on our own future, and on the future of mankind, than the outcome of any election.
Every moment of every day, every person makes a choice: to be kind or to be unkind, to be unselfish or to be selfish, to be honest or to be dishonest, to be thoughtful or to be thoughtless, to be aware or to be unaware, to be peaceable or to be violent. Everyday, every person chooses, within the context of every passing situation, either to mutely accept the world as it is, or to stand up and speak out for the necessity of creating a better world.
Each of us chooses, whether knowingly or unknowingly, to live either in a useless state of weakness and compliance, or in a purposeful state of strength and resistance. That fundamental choice, which has the power to define our being and govern our fate, can be made one way or the other, but a thoroughgoing renewal of the mind and the spirit will not result from choosing the easy way.