Things just work themselves out if you let them. A major disease in our culture is
pride. People think that their
“hard work” and “effort” is to thank for their good fortune, but there are factors responsible well out of our control. Many want to control the
uncontrollable and this leads to stressful days and sleepless nights. I attempt to avoid this as much as possible
and I feel like I have been rather successful in this. Our culture may think of me as
lazy or not motivated, but in fact it is just that I realize my limitations and
trust things will work out. If
there is something you can do solve a problem, then do it. If not, then nothing you do, especially
stress, will solve it. Typically
in the West it seems that people think that they and others can do a lot more
than they actually can. (This is a
paraphrase of what Confucius taught)
Our
culture is desperately lacking in wisdom.
I teach History and my favorite quote is from historian Jakob Burkhardt,
“We do not study history to be smarter next time, but to be wiser
forever.” We do not study people
like Confucius, Jesus and Gandhi enough.
These men were wise. They
knew that to be human, and a good human at that, was much more significant
than gold or silver. They knew the limitations of man, but also the great power
that we have to collectively make this a world in which we could all hope. These men sought wisdom and taught
its values. Our country has sadly
bought into the myth that what’s in your bank account is worth more than
knowledge, soul and love. It’s not
that we don’t value these things, it’s that we de-prioritize them in an effort to attain power and wealth. I
wonder what our world would look like if we could somehow rearrange the
priorities in society and individuals.
All
major changes start with individual action, but swimming against a tsunami is
impossible. We need more than just
a few dedicated individuals; we need wholesale change in our communities and
world. How does that happen? I don’t mean to sound like a total
downer and cynic, but I’m not sure it can. People have tried, with mixed results at best.
About
1/3 of the world and much of the West claim in one way or another to be a
follower of a man who lived on Earth 2000 years ago and claimed to be God. He was Jesus of Nazareth, I’m sure
you’ve heard of him. He lived in
what we call Israel today, which at the time was controlled by the Roman
Empire. His message was wise
, but it was amazingly counter-cultural for his time. Roman culture at this time was very
self-indulgent, materialistic, militaristic and proud. Sound familiar? He told people that they should not
kill their enemies, but pray for them.
He told people that if they were hit in one cheek, they should turn the
other to be hit as well. He said
it was the duty of people to care for those that needed care the most. He said that we should look after the
widows, orphaned and imprisoned.
He said that you should never worry, especially about money. He said that we should never judge
others and worry about our flawed actions first and help those who need our
help.
These are very difficult things to
put into practice for any human being, but it seems the worst part is that very
often we don’t even attempt to do these things. It seems our culture and world are very much the opposite of
what the wisest men ever to live actually thought our world could and should be
like. It seems that we have given
up on the possibility to make our world wise and given into economic data,
political infighting and unbending ideology. The irony is that if we emphasized wisdom more in our
culture, daily lives and educational systems our economy, political system and
irrational beliefs would all work themselves out naturally. One can’t solve economic problems, political
crisis or seek truth without seeking wisdom first. Our priorities are backwards and the callous way at which we
treat those who are different from us shouldn’t shock us. We love those closest to us but do not
worry about those that exist far away.
We typically see them as victims of their own lack of success and fail
to ever see our role in creating dictatorship, hardship and poverty across the
globe.
I’m looking for new ways and ideas
to get our culture and society to reprioritize wisdom that will lead to more
value on wisdom for the sake of bettering all of our situations and not lead us
down the dangerous path that we have chosen of rugged individualism, which has
led our society to be extraordinarily wealthy and powerful, but empty of
wisdom. Gandhi encouraged people
by emphasizing individual action that would better the community. Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to
see in the world.” I couldn’t
possibly agree more, but how can we then swim against that tsunami of
self-indulgence, pride and greed and create a more empathetic and wise
society. Any thoughts on how this change
could be achieved?
