Remember, all humans dream.
We just don’t always remember them.
We all have hopes and fears.
We just don’t always share them.
And just cause we can’t remember or choose not to share doesn’t mean we don’t experience these things.
It seems so human to think we operate on an island.
Towards what, though? Economic progress? This is already the wealthiest country in world history. Indeed, more money isn’t the answer to our problems. Progress is nothing without being defined. Instead of progress, we should aim towards better. When things are better, progress might be sacrificed in the name of process.
When looking into the past, it’s easy to tell ourselves a story that we know better than them. But, of course, that isn’t true. There are those who thought Feudalism and slavery were exploitative. But the cultural push for change is so difficult to achieve. Eventually, justice prevails when people do something about it.
Thanks to the internet, people don’t need more choices. Plenty of products are available for any item you type in the search bar.
What we need is quality choices.
This isn’t limited to just products.
The kind of job you work.
The city you live in.
The leisure activities available.
The music you listen to.
With everything at your disposal, there is a market with someone with good taste to point the way.
Giving into this narrative that things are so broken they can never be fixed is foolish.
Slavery was legal until one day it wasn’t.
Women didn’t have the right to vote. And then they did.
School wasn’t available for everyone to attend, but then it was.
The list goes on and on.
The planet is decaying, but one day, it won’t.
Capitalism reigns as the dominant economic force until it doesn’t.
Every empire falls. Ideas can too. Cultures change.
One thing we can do is believe that, at the end of this story, we can get this right.
The troubling part of our culture isn’t the existence of suffering. (Humans will always suffer.)
The trouble is when we can’t relieve it when we see it.
Humans have an obsession with time. We want more of it, probably because it’s the one thing we can’t buy more of.
We could obsess over its quality and perhaps focus on memory. Most of our experiences are forgotten. What’s remembered are the highlights.
Another way to think of ego is the act of self-absorption. When we are criticized or deeply hurt because someone says we are wrong or makes us feel like we are the mistake, our ego is bruised the most. We talk about the ego as a separate entity, but in reality, it is there with us in every decision we make. And it is so apparent that we think we have been wronged because of our weakness of being absolutely right.
With enough time, people can find ways to forgive themselves for their wrongdoings.
It’s the one advantage time gives us. Given enough of it, we can forget the details and not feel the same today as we did before.
The easiest thing to do is feel sorry for ourselves.
The hardest thing is to be useful.
You have something to contribute.
Josh Allred's Blog 