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You have to wonder why all of this terrible news is constantly being brought to your attention. I do. I am glad that as I make this slow assent to greatness that I am constantly reminded of all of the ills of the world. All of the problems plaguing my people. All of the problems plaguing all peoples. I do not want to forget where I've come from.
I will never forget that I've come from nothing more than good people with good hearts. People who struggled against the odds and persevered nonetheless. I never had many of the luxuries many others have had in life. I was however blessed with a very keen understanding of reality and my place in it. I am not ignorant of the fact of who I am or who I will become. When I am finally at a station in life to make some large, lasting and effective change I will do so. I will try my best to make some difference along the way. I will not forget where I have come from. I won't forget all of you.
Too often I hear "You gotta look out for number one" or some other iteration of a statement professing that in order to be successful one must be entirely selfish. My least favorite is how people approach the idiom "You've got to learn to love yourself first". This concept is true and it's so very important, but too many of us have it all wrong. You have people acting as if loving yourself means focusing only on your own positive attributes and only being concerned with your own journey forward. Truly learning to love yourself means learning to love all aspects of who you are as well as learning to love and appreciate and care about other people.
How can a person move forwards at the expense of other people? How can a person advance in life and ignore the plight of their own people? How can people get to a position of greatness and live a life of excess not give back to those they see who are struggling and in need? Easy they told themselves time and time again that they were the only being that was important. If you can ignore the pain of your fellow man and say you love yourself then you love a bad person.
I've encountered quite a few people who discovered some truth in the bible, or came to understand a bit of buddhist philosophy, or listened to a powerful self help seminar and thought they immediately understood the secret to the universe and how to operate in order to succeed. There are so many of us out here walking around talking about how our "third eye" is open, yet we behave as if our primary two eyes are sewed shut. Abre los ojos. It's not just about positive thinking. Yeah that's part of it but not all of it. It's about rightful thinking and rightful action as well.
I'm not saying I know everything there is to know about success and leading a good life. I'm still learning myself; but I do know that good people care about other people. Plain and simple. I know that many of us claim to be good people and want to be good people. I also know that many of us are distracted with an ideal of success and feel like we have to sacrifice some of our humanity to make it. I warn you not to do so. If you sacrifice a little bit more and more of yourselves day by day until you make it; when you get where you're going there will be nothing left.
(Now I'm probably going to get a little far out here for some of you but...)
So again, why is all of this terrible news constantly brought to our attention? I believe it's so we can do something about it.
Reality is simple, it is both chaos and order. Yin and Yang. It's a balance. There is a lot of bad happening on a macro level (the world) as well as a lot of bad happening on a micro level (your personal life). The same goes for good things. There is only one caveat to this reality. It must be balanced. When one aspect is ignored the other is affected. It all starts to implode on itself. So you cannot care only about yourself and not the world. Just as you cannot care only about the world and not give any attention to yourself. Mankind has moved from living as communities to living as individuals. Most of us only care about our personal lives and in turn and in time the world suffers. It's a tricky balance to master. The state of the world mirrors the state of humanity as a whole. We are not well. And too many of us are only concerned with ourselves. Too many of us have become decidedly ignorant.
There is a reason so many people talked about a mass spiritual and mental awakening a few years back. It's happened. This is it. What did we think we were going to wake up and realize everything was perfectly fine?!
Remember it's all about balance; so balance the time you do for others with the time you put into yourself. The solution is simple: pay attention and take action. Do for others and your own life will be bettered.
