Playing our own part:
Playing our own part in improving our world is essential! The questions arise, what can a single person or a few people together do in a world where we want big things - schools, colleges, hospitals, social care, good roads, cars, parking spaces, restaurants, aircrafts, airports, electricity supplies, flood-controls, clean environment - the list can go on. To improve matters, even if we want to petition to a council or municipality complaining about the condition of our own road full of potholes and rubles scattered everywhere - a few of the residents might not like to sign the petition. This appears to be a common experience.
Here we can certainly question the mindset of some people! Again, we all want our cars parked closest to our homes, which may look usual - but may not always be practical. Some people could be so inflexible that they may not like to park their cars even a few meters away from their homes and can get into an argument with their neighbours on such a small matter. This is a very common problem in any places. If our mindset cannot handle such a simple issue, how can we do bigger and greater things? A small tweaking of our mindset can prepare our mind to co-operate with each other or within a group, making miracles! So, when there is a good purpose, following through an objective bears fruit and gradually induces the reluctant parties to appreciate the results of having the appropriate mindset. It is a learning process! Therefore, the issue of our mindset in all matters plays a very important role in getting along with people and making progress for all.
Taking our own responsibility:
Blaming others for the ills of our society is easy and not fulfilling our own responsibilities in the appropriate moment means storing greater troubles for our future! Anyone with the slightest of awareness of the state of the world today would recognise that the world today is facing immense uncertainty, causing us to live through very anxious times. It is true that the world has always been a very challenging place. Since the time, our distant ancestors took the courage to stand on their two bare feet and started to walk until now has been an astounding period of many million years. With endless struggles - but with supreme courage, intelligence and determination we have arrived at this most advanced present-day stage with unimaginable successes. This should give us all the reasons and confidence to be hopeful for the future. True, there have been a number of occasions where we have faltered shamelessly. But overall we have made such progress that we cannot now travel backward causing some incomprehensible acts which lead to catastrophic consequences. Due to the lack of appropriate mindset befitting the time and relying on old believes and solutions we have taken some wrong turns. In a globalised world, we have arrived at such a juncture that we have to leave off some of our present outdated believes and solutions and adopt new ways that can be applicable to all people irrespective of caste, creed, colours, nations or any small or large group identities. We have to know what are real successes, real power, and real greatness as individuals and as nations. Changing our mindset for the benefit of all is the only answer and not anything else.
Viewing matters correctly:
Everything in our lives depends on what we think and how we think of many of the issues we are aware of or we encounter ourselves. Some may believe that they can make positive changes to the world or some may believe that nothing meaningful can be done by us ‘ordinary people’. Considered carefully, we will discover that there is no such a thing called ordinary people; as we can so often see that many so-called ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Therefore, instead of saying ‘ordinary’ people, more appropriately we may say, ‘general people’, who have always made huge contributions to improve our ways of living and are still doing so. We also see so often that many of the so-called special people in society turn up later not to be true.
So putting someone wrongly on a pedestal may not serve us well! We view the world from who we intrinsically are or what we are! If we are not ourselves honest, we may think that others may not be honest too. If we are honest, truthful, hardworking and socially oriented, we may feel that there must be many other people like ourselves and would be generally hopeful about the world. We would work towards the betterment of the world; encourage others to follow the same path and acknowledge that to stick to old thinking with negativism will not be fruitful. We will consider that to be able to think differently with an enlightened mindset is crucial.
Evaluating our past and present:
All of us have arrived in this world of no choice of ours, but with the good intentions of two people who considered that having children is a good thing for their own happiness as well as for some support in their old age and for humanity to continue. That is not a wrong idea and indeed this has been the way for humans ever since we started. We can now compare our distant past and our present state. We may see that with erred ideas we have done serious damage to our environment, relationships between nations and people threatening our very survival. But we can equally see the vast progress mankind has made in so many ways. This can be so clear when we compare our living conditions of today to hundred years ago. We only have to look at our schools, colleges, medical and technological achievements, social changes and other signs of progress. If we remain aware of our responsibilities and are prepared to rectify our past errors where possible; make better changes, work diligently, our future will be bright. Failing that, we can be totally destroyed. So having the right mindset for people in all places and positions are of immense importance. This is a responsibility each of us must take earnestly be it in private life, in the field of our work and in our social activities.
Being Positive:
Being positive means, thinking right, feeling right and doing right. We have to do many activities in our lives. Most of us do a job, raise a family, look after our needs, pay our expenses, communicate with our family and friends and come to their aid when possible. But how much of our doing such things are done with absolute joyfulness or by compulsion of some kinds? Being aware of the world deeply how it actually works rather than how it appears to work can help us to discover many of things we could do to make our lives more secure and meaningful. Almost everything we see has an unknown side, sometimes very detrimental to us which needs to be discovered to ensure that our knowledge on a particular matter is solid. Do we really know how good is a piece of meat we ate; a car we came in or an insurance policy we have, until the time of its fulfilment arrives? We will need a lot more knowledge to make this world a better place.
Things that can be done by all of us:
Looking at a website; reading through the pages of a book; listening to a lecture and thinking on an issue is the first step. The next step is to consider whether what we are seeing, hearing or reading make any meaningful sense to us. If you feel that the contents of our website make sense, why not you act on it? The process of making progress on any issues is to act on it on the first opportunity one has, otherwise procrastination sets in and things never get done.
