DAY 76 – ONE COMMON PURPOSE: WORKING TOGETHER FOR A BETTER FUTURE

A couple of months after the event at the field where we started to become more aware about problems that human beings have and the article in our student newsletter about not having problems our college held a forum titled “What Can We Do To Eliminate Problems”. The auditorium was filled with both students and faculty from our college.

When the event started the moderator suggested that in order to get a handle on problems that human beings have we needed to find a way to categorize our problems. Someone in the audience suggested something that she had read that may be helpful is that human life can be broken down into nine basic categories that when achieved will create a personally better life and a collectively better world. The discussion about these nine requirements lasted about an hour and everyone ultimately agreed that the most problematic problems any person has to deal with are directly related to these nine requirements. Determining how to eliminate our problems became more challenging.

The discussions in the auditorium continued on for a few hours with stories being told about how people we know have had to endure years of turmoil because they didn’t know how to resolve certain difficulties in their lives. We also heard how real life problems in one’s own family or in the community in which they live have negatively rippled their way into their own life and the lives of so many other people.

The other thing that we took away from these stories about personal problems was that every person needs someone to be there for them to inspire them to do better and to help them to quickly resolve a problematic situation. We heard about relatives and good friends stepping up and being there for one another when a person they care about has a problem that is so out of the ordinary that it weighs them down like an anchor on a ship. We heard about non-profit organizations which are formed to help people in their time of need. We heard about citizens in their town coming to the rescue when a disaster strikes a single family or when it engulfs the entire community.

As we were discussing how people have helped people in their time of need someone in the auditorium shouted out “that is our common purpose”. This quickly set off a discussion about how every parent and grandparent has the same purpose of helping their children and grandchildren have more insights into life so they can navigate their way through life’s difficulties in order to find happiness and enjoyment. We talked about how every employee or member of a company and organization has a common purpose to ensure a smooth and well functioning operation. We turned our attention to our own school where every student, faculty member and other school employees have the common purpose of helping every student to succeed while they attend this school.

It was getting late and while we did not come up with an all encompassing solution to what we can do to eliminate personal and societal problems we did come to one important breakthrough before ending the event, all of us have a common purpose of working together for a better future. Instead of acting as separate individuals and part of separate groups we could become united around the idea of working with our fellow human beings in the effort to make this a better world for everyone. We envisioned a time where humanity would be in sync with one another.

Thinking about the various discussions at this forum I now realize that life requires a solid foundation upon which we can build a better future for ourselves, the people we love and our fellow human beings. Believing that all of humanity has one common purpose of working together for a better future gives us the starting point for that better future.

DAY 77 – COMMUNITY BETTERMENT PROJECT

Later today I will be graduating from college. When I look back at my four years here I can see how I have changed.

While I did get a great education and will be going into the world and working at a job that I wanted to do since I was ten years old I never expected to be part of something so much bigger than myself when I first came to this school. During my freshman year our entire school embarked on a project to help one another have fewer problems in life. This didn’t just pertain to the students academic concerns but also to every facet of the students life. This quickly morphed into the lives of the faculty and to every other college employee.

At first we focused our attention upon having a common purpose to be there for one another to help every student have academic success. Our campus website had a link where a student could post a request for someone who could help them with a particular problem they were having with a specific subject. There was always someone who responded back that they could help online or in a one on one meeting on campus.

Group meetings were also scheduled where students showed up to help other students who were having academic problems. While we included faculty members to be part of these meetings we did not see what was coming. One day a professor decided to share her life story with us about being verbally and sexually abused when she was a teenager which still haunts her to that day. The students started to give her advice and encouragement.

While discussing that teacher’s mistreatment when she was younger and the advice being given by those of us who are younger we came to realize that age is not required to contribute to making someone’s life better. We knew that we did not have to wait until we become 30, 40 or older to positively affect someone’s life. We, the young, have the ability to change anyone’s life for the better and we can do it now.

A movement of “How Can We Do More” quickly spread through our campus. Groups were formed where students could talk about personal issues concerning their family, dating, health difficulties, financial distress or anything else that was of a personal nature. There were separate meetings where students could get together to try and do something about issues on a global scale such as violence, the environment, poverty, hunger, war or any other problem that may be facing human beings around the world. We began to see ourselves as living our lives based upon having one common purpose of working together for a better future.

Helping one another on campus took on another life of its own. We came to understand that our two thousand student body lies within a city of twenty-five thousand residents and workers and if we are to live in a better world every person in that town has to have fewer problems just like the students at our school. Many of the students, including myself, found ourselves going into town and finding out what we could do that could have a positive impact upon the lives of the people who lived and worked in that town. A “Community Betterment Project” was born.

We decided to send fifty students into town to tell the residents and workers that we are starting a “Community Betterment Project” throughout the city in order to help them have fewer personal and community wide problems. We asked them for any suggestions they may have about how we should go about doing this as this is their town and we did not want to impose ourselves onto their lives.

One store owner said that if we could get twenty-five percent of the twenty-five thousand people in this town to volunteer just four hours each month to make their town a better place for everyone it would mean we would have twenty-five thousand hours of people’s time each month devoted to community betterment. This opened our eyes to how much good could come from just four hours a month of service to one another on a community wide basis.

When we went back to school we made flyers about how four hours a month can change a community and went back into town to distribute it to stores around the city. We got so much positive feedback from the residents and workers that we knew that our “Community Betterment Project” would be received with open arms. We then had to think about how we would go about doing this on a larger scale with more detail than what we were doing on campus.

Most of the students at our school are 18 to 22 years old. While we are still young we have made mistakes in our lives that we wish didn’t happen. We realized that our primary goal should be to reach children as young as possible so they can have some insights into life at an earlier age so they do not think and act in ways that create unwanted problems for themselves, others and the earth. We also understood that our other goal should be to have adults understand that their problems can be prevented or quickly resolved with more insight into why those problems occur.

Doing this on a city wide scale required passing on to the people of the town a few important concepts.

1) Human life can be broken down into nine basic requirements for a better life and better world. The problems everyone has to deal with are related to these nine requirements and when people in their town focus their attention on achieving these nine requirements there will be fewer personal and community wide problems human beings have to deal with.

2) A “Better Life Philosophy” that states I will make life better for myself, others and planet earth will give us an overarching belief system which people can unite around. Having the young, as well as adults, come to believe in “A Better Life Philosophy” will give them the basis for how they can judge whether their thoughts and actions enhance life or cause problems. Hopefully, people in their town will then act in ways that create a better life for all of their citizens.

3) When people in their town come together and decide to have one common purpose of working together for a better future it means that people in this community are united in eliminating the problems that people have. There is no “us” and “them” just the collective we of every single person in this town.

4) Human beings live our lives based on the thoughts that each of us have. These thoughts are just the silent words that each of us say to oneself. Many of the problems a person has is the result of silent words that bring about those problems. Many societal problems are the result of the silent words that are part of a community that brings about those problems. By understanding which silent words create difficulties and which silent words lead to a better life and better world we can help one another to have the type of thoughts that enhance life and prevent problems from developing.

5) When we reach out to the youth of this town we want to help them to look at life in a holistic manner so they can better understand how their thoughts and actions have a ripple effect upon their own lives, the lives of other people and the earth. When we deal with adults we want them to understand that their difficulties may be nothing more than habits of thinking and acting that have been built up over time. For every human being the long term effect needs to be of concern just like the effect it has at that very moment.

There are many beneficial consequences to a city wide “Community Betterment Project” where people work together for a better future for everyone. I now realize that such a project will give the young a sound and solid foundation upon which they can live their lives. I also realize that a project that strives to help all of its members to have fewer problems will unite people in their community and as time goes on and other communities engage in a similar project it can eventually unite the world.

DAY 78 – A BETTER LIFE AND BETTER WORLD WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY HAPPEN, WE HAVE TO CREATE IT

I just got home after going to the supermarket to buy dinner for my family. My five year old son had told me in the store he was getting hungry. I told him that it would be a little while until we get home and I would then cook his food for him. When we got home he started to act up because he thought the food should be ready right away. He did not understand that his dinner would not automatically be ready when he wanted it to be.

Life is similar to the impatience of a child who wants something right at that moment even if it is unreasonable to immediately expect it to happen. Human beings want a better life right at that moment. We want to live in a better world right at that moment. When something goes amiss or is downright cruel we wonder why it couldn’t be different. Seldom does a person look at oneself or others and say that thinking the same way and acting in a manner like I always have will not bring about the change in my own life and in the world that I would like to see happen.

The world that we live in today is so different from the world of a century ago. We can see the ingenuity that is required to figure out how to solve a task or invent a product that has helped humanity transcend what had existed up until that point in time. It may have taken many tries and many years to invent something new but the effort is worth every minute of the toil because it has made everyday living easier and better. Elevating our world onto another plane where humanity as a whole can achieve the nine basic requirements for a better life and better world requires an ingenuity and effort that can bring it about.

Inventing a product requires a dedication to seeing it through its trials and tribulations. There will be disappointments that it has taken longer to get to where a person or group set out to go. There will be peaks and valleys until the final product is achieved. Those who create something new often have to spend time seeing it through the failures until success is achieved. Every life changing invention requires the determination to not give up.

To have a personally better life and to live in a collectively better world requires even more determination and effort than inventing a product. We have to deal with one another as separate individuals with different ideas and beliefs. We have to deal with one another as members of different nationalities, religions, races, ethnicities and sexual orientations who have different histories, ideologies, beliefs and ways of living life based upon which group they are part of. Living in harmony with one another often is a difficult task.

Except for its complexity, getting to where we want to go as a species requires time and effort that is no different than the time and effort required to prepare a meal or inventing a useful product. We have to put our minds to the task of not having problems, whether those difficulties are one’s own, those of the people we care about the most, our neighbors or any human being living on the other side of the planet.

Human beings have a connection to one another that goes beyond just saying we are human. That connection is who we are and lies deep within. The desire for a better personal life and a collectively better world drives us to do the good deeds that we do even if some of those kind acts has nothing to do with one’s own life. This human connection is the driving force to creating a better world.

I now realize that every single invention, every single good deed and every single human desire has never been as simple as thinking about it and somehow it then magically appears. A better life for myself, my loved ones and every other human being will not automatically happen, we have to create it.

DAY 79 – THE ROLES YOU HAVE TO PLAY IN LIFE

I am an actor in a four part play waiting for the curtain to go up. The first act has me as the main character in a biography about my own life. The second act has me at a barbeque with four generations of relatives ranging in age from two to ninety-two showing how each relative plays a role in one another’s life. The third act has me cooking breakfast when an earthquake strikes my town. The final act has me driving my family for a picnic and swimming to a lake.

THE ROLE YOU HAVE TO PLAY IN YOUR OWN LIFE: YOU SERIOUSLY NEED THE BEST OF YOURSELF

The main character in a play has a responsibility to perform at his or her best. Actors who go on a stage without knowing the lines will just bumble along. Without specific lines that depicts the objectives and direction of the play it can wander off in any number of tangent paths. What then happens to the main character is not what the author originally intended.

Every human being is the author and the main character in their own real life play each and every day. There is a script that is constantly being written and while we may have an idea of what to expect there is no way to know beforehand what the dialogue will be nor what events will transpire when we wake up in the morning. What we hope for every day is that life goes smoothly and does not present us with problems that we do not want to have.

Every person has a responsibility to perform at his or her best. While actors hope for a role of a lifetime they have the luxury of moving from role to role until they get what they believe will be their ultimate casting. Each of us, on the other hand, does not have the luxury of waiting for some great role that lies sometime in the future. We are living our real lives in the here and now.

Bumbling along in life is not an option for anyone. Hoping and wishing for a better life by itself will not make it happen. The more insightful knowledge and beneficial actions I engage in the better my life becomes. I now realize that I have a responsibility to myself to create a better life for myself.

THE ROLE YOU HAVE TO PLAY IN YOUR FAMILY’S LIFE: YOUR FAMILY SERIOUSLY NEEDS THE BEST OF YOURSELF

In the second act of this play I am at our annual summertime family picnic at my grandparent’s home. Most of the time our family gatherings are joyful and peaceful. Once in a while two relatives find themselves embroiled in a heated argument that creates a lot of tension between them and makes everyone there uncomfortable.

Every family member is intertwined with one another that has far ranging implications. The behavior of any one person in a family setting can be the difference between a chaotic household and chaotic family gatherings that creates stress for everyone or a peaceful environment that is life enhancing for every single person.

So much of what each of us center our thoughts around is family. We grow up with parents and siblings. We have grandparents and grandchildren that we often spend time with. We have aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and in-laws that are part of our familial relationship. Having this part of one’s life go well requires a stable foundation that a person can rely upon for the rest of his or her life.

The closer you are to someone the more they count on you. They count on you to be there in their time of need. They count on you to help them through the difficult situations they may face by just listening to what they have to say. They count on you for providing insightful and sound counsel that gives them a way forward when life seems out of control. They count on you to be a friend who just goes out of your way to lend a helping hand even for the most minor of tasks. Reaching out to relatives, no matter how far away they may be, to let them know that they are cared about is so important.

Every person in a family can inspire their relatives to greater heights. Every person can encourage the people they love to follow a path in life they find rewarding. Every person can help one another to build a solid foundation upon which to live their life. I now realize that my role within my family can be a force to uplift one another in ways that other interactions and relationships do not do.

THE ROLE YOU HAVE TO PLAY IN YOUR COMMUNITY: YOUR COMMUNITY SERIOUSLY NEEDS THE BEST OF YOURSELF

In the third act I am cooking breakfast when my house starts to shake. Neighborhood alarms go off and I go outside to find out what just happened. My next door neighbor tells me that our town was hit with a small earthquake. He says that while our homes had little damage, he got a call from a friend who lives on the other side of town and homes there were badly damaged or completely destroyed.

I decided to try and get to the other side of town and see how I could help the people living there. When I arrived across town I could not believe what had just happened. House after house had been partially or completely devastated. Right away I could see that many people who lived there had lost their homes. While I could not make their homes whole again I offered them assistance in any way that I could.

At some point in time every human being needs some help from the people living near them. Children in school who are not doing well need tutoring that goes beyond the teachers and parents they have. New parents and parents who are having difficulty raising their children need the knowledge and insights of others that can make a significant difference in the lives of their children. Those who are having difficulties in their relationships or are prone to verbal and violent outbursts need someone to talk to them about how to peacefully resolve any differences and live in harmony with the people they care about. People who are sick or have a severe illness may need someone to help them with everyday tasks. The homeless, hungry and those living on the edge of despair need people right where they live that can help uplift them out of their situation in order to achieve the same better life that everyone else desires.

In every community there are people who have problematic events and situations that they and the people who love them have difficulty resolving. Helping your fellow community members prevent problematic situations from occurring and helping them to expeditiously resolve an existing difficulty is what a better life philosophy is all about. Being a community citizen in your own town and in the region in which you live can be so impactful that it can completely change the lives of your neighbors.

While many people today have busy and hectic lives all of us should try to find some time to come to the aid of those who live nearby. Giving your time can often do more good than donating money because it can give the recipient of that gesture a sense that they are not alone in this world in their battle to have fewer difficulties and a peaceful and harmonious life. Such benevolent actions have an added psychological effect of saying that there are good, decent and kind people living right in our midst that care about the welfare of others. I now realize that being a good neighbor not only means people contribute some of their time to helping those who live near them but it also has the added benefit of creating a bond between human beings that brings people and entire communities closer together.

THE ROLE YOU HAVE TO PLAY WITH THE EARTH: THE EARTH SERIOUSLY NEEDS THE BEST OF YOURSELF

In the final act of this play I am taking my family for a swim and picnic at a lake that my parents took me to when I was a young boy. For years I had told my spouse and children what a good time I had going there with my parents. Since it takes a twelve hour drive to get to this lake it has been difficult to go there with my family until today.

When we arrived at the entrance of the lake there was a sign that read DO NOT SWIM: POLLUTED WATER. We decided to go to the parking lot and still have a picnic on the beach. What we saw was so disheartening. The beach was littered with garbage and it was impossible to sit on the beach and just enjoy the view of the lake.

This unusable polluted lake and an unusable littered filled beach is not unusual in many places around the planet. Human beings discharge pollutants and dispose of litter that not only prevents us from enjoying the magnificent splendor of the earth but also causes great harm to how the earth functions for the benefit of all life in those locales.

The people who are inconsiderate towards the earth and dispose of anything and everything anywhere they want is no different than a two year old who just leaves the toys he or she is playing with on the floor for their parents to put away. Young children do not have the capability to see past the immediate moment. What makes discharging pollutants and leaving litter so much worse is that the people who do this understand what they are doing and just do not care about the ramifications of their actions.

After finding a scenic spot to have lunch we drove home. The long ride back gave us plenty of time to talk about what causes people to be so inconsiderate towards the earth. I and my family now realize that every human being has a responsibility to keep the earth as clean and sustainable as he or she can.

DAY 80 – A FRESH AND NEW BEGINNING: TOMORROW DOES NOT HAVE TO BE LIKE YESTERDAY

When I was a kid I would like to go to an amusement park and my favorite ride was the merry-go-round. At the time I thought it was the greatest thing in the world to sit on one of the stationary horses as it went up and down with the ride going in a circle. I would do this over and over again.

While I have had many pleasant moments during the course of my life certain things have occurred that have made me think that I am on a merry-go-round of unwanted problems. When a specific problematic situation developed it would go away and after some time it would come back again. Other specific problems would pop up and they too would be resolved only to find myself reliving what I do not want to happen. Just like the merry-go-round goes in a circle and I am sitting on a stationary horse that goes up and down so too do the problems that I have to contend with come full circle with me living my life as if I am in a stationary position having to continuously deal with the unwanted.

When life presents itself with too many personal difficulties that never seem to end human beings want to get off of the merry-go-round of problems. While wanting to get off this merry-go-round is one thing, repeating the same behaviors will always get the same results. Eventually an insight develops that a fresh and new beginning is required before any real and lasting changes can occur.

Our thought habits keep behavioral habits alive. Any first time difficulty that turns into an ongoing situation requires similar thoughts and behaviors to keep it alive. Having a determination that tomorrow does not have to be like yesterday can be a powerful tool in changing around any lasting negative situation. There is nothing set in stone that says the yesterdays that no one wants to have will be the tomorrows that a person dreads.

While repetitive difficulties can be draining upon any individual so too can ongoing societal problems be a burden upon the citizenry of entire communities. There are issues in life that every generation has to deal with and they have a great impact upon those who are living through it. No group of people is immune to the overarching difficulties of their fellow members of a nationality, religion, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation who have to go through something on a group wide scale.

When entire groups of people decide that there is no inevitability to the yesterdays that no one wants to have and that tomorrow will not be like the yesterdays all of us have had to live through then concrete actions can occur to change the world for the better. New individual beliefs can become part of the societal norm and new behaviors that enrich all of our lives will then be commonplace. It may seem hard to see this on a huge scale but changing life for the better in the past has always required a new and fresh beginning for the people of that era.

As I remember all of the ups and downs of my life I now realize that every positive change that I incorporated into my life required a new and fresh beginning from what I was experiencing. My life today is so much better because I could envision a time where my tomorrows would be better than the problematic yesterdays.

DAY 81 – A MINDSET FOR A BETTER FUTURE

Every summer I spend a month at my grandparents’ house. After dinner for the entire month we go out onto their porch and sit there watching people walk by and drive their cars past their home. Each night we become spectators to what other people are doing and not active participants in doing different things in life.

One night on the porch we started to talk about where people are going and what they will be doing. We speculated that some people in their cars may be coming home after work or going to the store. We thought that the kids we saw riding by on their bicycles could be going to their friends house or to a field to play. We saw an ambulance rushing by with its siren on and we knew they had to be going to aid a person in distress or taking someone to the hospital.

After the month was over and I went back home to my parents I started to think about how some people do things and others are more of a spectator, like my grandparents, to what is happening in the world. One of my teachers in high school who is in her sixties is very active and contributes a lot of her time to help people in need. She is constantly working with a non-profit organization that comes to the aid of the homeless. She also helps in a community garden that gives free fruits and vegetables to the poor. Every summer she spends two weeks planting trees in areas that have been devastated by fires. My teacher is an active participant in helping to make this a better world.

One of the things I have learned from my teacher is not to leave it up to other people to become involved in helping our fellow human beings. She tells us little gets accomplished when we find a reason why we can’t be helpful but when we look at life from the perspective of how much good will come from our efforts we give of ourselves more freely. She inspires us to do good and be agents for a better future.

The difference between my grandparents being spectators to what others are doing and my teacher’s active and helpful activities is in the different mindset each one has. A few years ago I had a conversation with my grandparents that made me believe they do not think they can do much to change their own lives let alone the world. They told me that they are getting older with their health not as good as it used to be and nothing will change that. They watch the news and see the horrors of war and the poverty that engulfs a segment of humanity and do not see how it could change. They have lost hope for a better tomorrow and without a mindset that they can positively affect their own lives and can make a difference in the lives of other people they sit idly by and are passive spectators to what is possible.

Thinking about the contrary beliefs and lifestyles between my grandparents and my teacher I now realize that I will no longer just sit on the sidelines and let whatever occurs to be my mindset. From now on I will be an active participant in creating a better life for myself and actively engaged in creating a better world wherever I can.

DAY 82 – RAISING CONSCIOUSNESS AND A GESTATION PERIOD FOR IT

My twenty two year old son who works across the country is home for the holidays. When I asked him how his job is and how does he like the city he is working in he told his father and me that most of the time it is okay but there are certain difficult situations that he has to deal with. He thanked us for what we did when he was growing up that helped prepare him for those difficult moments in his life.

His answer surprised us. I asked him what did we do that helped him and he mentioned the times we would give him insights into life and how to handle different situations. I was surprised by this since so often when he was younger the advice we had given him didn’t seem to register. I now understand that our efforts did have a positive impact upon his life in ways that weren’t readily visible before.

We often see the inability of children to grasp a concept they hear for the first time. Parents have to repeat certain things over and over again to their children and it may seem they are talking to a wall. It takes a period of time until children have a new set of silent words that takes over in their minds that creates the desired beneficial behavior commonplace.

Adults are similar to children in how they do not automatically change their ways of thinking and behaving at the first exposure to something new. Adults can dismiss the new and validate their own contrary beliefs based upon certain long held concepts. Human beings often seem rigid and unwilling to contemplate that the new may have certain benefits that the old does not.

In the modern world over the last few decades polling about major issues can give us an understanding into how people change their views about those issues. At the beginning there are fewer people who favor a new concept or way of living life. The people who want to keep the old are very adamant about their position. As time goes on the polls show more support for the new position. The common denominator to anything new that was once frowned upon and is now accepted by more human beings is exposure to the new.

Exposure to the new allows it to filter into a person’s mindset. With the passage of time, which could be a few months or decades, new ideas, concepts or ways of living life no longer appear odd, dangerous or out of step. A realization develops that the old is so much inferior to the new and at that point a change in consciousness develops on a personal level. When enough human beings change their consciousness for a new and better way of living life and actively conduct their lives based upon the new, it then creates a collectively better world on a societal and global scale.

During my son’s visit with his father and me we talked about life and he related to us some of the most impactful ideas he learned from us and other people. He told us how he has changed and I now realize that to raise consciousness to a level where human beings do not have the problems that exist today we need a gestation period where people can get used to new ideas and concepts. Eventually, the new is accepted and a change in behavior then occurs that brings about the desired personally better life and a collectively better world.

DAY 83 – UNDERSTANDING THOUGHTS: THE FIRST STEP INTO MAKING ONE’S OWN LIFE BETTER AND MAKING THIS A BETTER WORLD

There was a story recently on the news about two people who got into a verbal argument that escalated into punches being thrown over a parking spot at a mall. Each person believed that he had the right to park there instead of the other person.

Think about what preceded this parking lot situation. Two people are going to a mall to buy something. Their day could be very normal and both of them had no cares in the world or they could have had something in life going on that was very troubling. Neither of them expected any type of confrontation when they pulled into the lot. Yet, here in hindsight, they found themselves in a violent situation.

When we can understand that human beings live our lives in thought we can understand that two people developed thoughts in their minds that a specific parking spot should be theirs and the other person had to find a different one. Both people did not want to change their minds about the parking spot which is really not wanting to change their thoughts about the parking spot. Each person got to the point where their thoughts made hitting another human being acceptable.

Before this parking situation escalated into annoyance, anger and physically assaulting the other person, either of the two people could have been magnanimous and allowed the other person to park there. This, a more peaceful and cooperative approach, is also the result of a thought.

Thoughts are behind how human beings act. We have certain thoughts when we act kind and different ones when we treat other people poorly. We have certain thoughts about ourselves that uplift us and contribute to our self-confidence and other thoughts of a self demeaning nature that deflate us and make us feel bad. We have certain thoughts about how we treat our own body when we treat it well and other thoughts when we ignore what we should do for better health. We have certain thoughts when we act in ways to keep the earth clean and sustainable and other thoughts when we pollute and litter the only planet we have. We have certain thoughts when we want to find common ground with people whose ideologies and behaviors are not the same as one’s own and other thoughts when we do not want to cooperate with people whose ideologies and behaviors are different from one’s own.

Having inner harmony where we do not become enraged is dependent upon not having those silent words that gets us upset. Human beings want life to go smoothly without any annoying interruptions to what we are doing at that moment. That is impossible. There will be times in our day where something happens that is not what we want to happen. Since it just occurred, we cannot change it. Our thoughts dictate how we react to the unwanted and determine whether we go peacefully forward or become inwardly enraged and outwardly abusive.

One focus of a community betterment project is to help one another understand their thoughts so that everyone can have fewer problematic situations. It is too easy to get lost inside of one’s own mind that brings on personally destructive behaviors along with verbal assaults and violently lashing out at another human being.

By having a community betterment project where people in town talk about which thoughts enhance life compared to the type of thoughts that create human difficulties it can make a significant difference in the lives of their community members, especially so for the young. Learning about how each of us are affected by what we hear, read and see that turns into specific thoughts and subsequent behaviors is essential for not getting upset at a situation or at another human being. Helping our fellow community members to understand that anti-thoughts aimed at people who have different ideologies and belong to different nationalities, religions, races, ethnicities or sexual orientations than oneself is the reason people hate certain people. The insights that can be gained from understanding one’s own thoughts may help prevent personal problems and societal difficulties from ever developing.

After watching this news story about a physical altercation over a parking spot, I now realize that the thoughts that flow through my mind lead to the behaviors that I engage in. How I treat my body, how I treat my fellow human beings and how I treat the earth begins with the type of thoughts that I have. Self-centered thoughts lead to selfish and uncooperative behaviors. Peaceful and harmonious thoughts become the cooperative spirit that makes this a better world. Thoughts are the underpinnings for what follows.

DAY 84 – THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND STATEMENTS FOR SELF UNDERSTANDING: IT BEGINS WITH WHICH, WHY, WHAT, HOW AND DO NOT

I am at a private art event at my friend’s gallery. Of the fifty or so people there, the only ones I know are my friend and two of her employees.

During the course of four hours my friend and her employees introduced me to most of the guests there. While I did not know much about art, the people I met are real art enthusiasts. It seemed that each person I talked to could go on about the paintings hanging in the gallery as well as general information in the art world.

While everyone there is very nice, the same pattern emerges when meeting someone for the first time. We ask someone questions about themself such as what type of work do you do, what are your interests and where are you from. We can find out a few things about them but general information questions do not give insight into the inner depths of another human being.

The same lack of getting to understand another person about who they are deep down can also apply to getting to know oneself with more depth. Too many people do not ask themselves the right questions that will give them the real insights into what they do and why they do it. Without a deeper understanding about oneself patterns of thinking and behaving stay the same over the course of decades even if there is a desire and need for something different.

Sitting down and calmly analyzing one’s own life is essential for changing your life. Such understanding of oneself requires asking questions that begins with which, why, what and how and two statements that begin with do not.

WHICH AREAS OF MY LIFE ARE PROBLEMATIC

Human beings often get caught up in their day to day living of their lives. We go from doing one thing to doing the next thing. If you’re a parent your child can keep you busy every waking hour. If you’re dating or married to someone the time you spend together is filled with doing things together. If you have a job the hours at work finds you having to perform certain tasks throughout the working day. When you combine working, involvement in a relationship and being a parent so much of our time centers around these three things.

When something goes wrong in your life you know it. No one has to point it out to you since you’re focusing your time and energy upon having to deal with whatever is problematic. The real insight comes when you can understand how each personal problem is related to one of the nine basic requirements for a better life. It is then possible to put your problems into their proper perspective because many of the other nine basic requirements for a better life are turning out as you want them to. Seeing life in such a manner makes your problems less daunting in your mind.

WHY AM I THINKING AND ACTING AS I DO

Just as we think and act our way to a better life with fewer problems we also think and act our way to situations that create personal difficulties or problems for another human being. By asking ourselves “why am I thinking and acting as I do”, each of us can look deeper into the reasons that have led to certain thoughts and behaviors that create the unwanted in each of our lives.

Since we become affected by what we see, hear or read, every person can look for something that had a profound effect upon themself that became the silent words of annoyance, anger, apprehension or mistrust towards another human being. We can look back on our past and see that self-doubt, insecurity, fears or acceptance of being mistreated were the result of the words and actions of someone else that a person then heaps upon themself and it becomes part of the inner dialogue that is ever present.
.
Knowing why you have the thoughts that you have and why you engage in the behaviors that you do are so important in preventing personal problems. Understanding others in this same way enables you to be more sympathetic to what another person is going through. Such insights makes it easier to overcome the problematic silent words that meander through one’s mind and help the people you know to do the same.

Some people allow personal heartache, despair, worry and a belief in a futile and a troubled future to be a constant part of their lives while other people have a mindset that enables them to find the beauty within their own life and within this world that carries them forward with endless positive possibilities. For those who have a troubled life, finding the answers to “why am I thinking and acting as I do” will help remove the former and lead to the latter.

WHAT IF I AM WRONG

Human beings have thoughts about themselves, their loved ones, other people, philosophical ideologies and the world at large. At any age a person can develop ideas about life and never fully entertain new ideas about their beliefs. When this happens a person closes their mind to what is happening in the world that could be counter to what they believe in. New information is discarded even if it can be shown to have more validity than the thoughts in one’s own mind.

Asking oneself “what if I am wrong” is essential for every human being no matter what their beliefs about life are. It can enable a person to better understand ideas contrary to one’s own. It can open up a world of possibilities that aren’t there with a mind closed to new ways of living life that may have the potential to right the wrongs and change what may have seemed unchangeable.

“What if I am wrong” enables a person to look at “why am I thinking and acting as I do” in greater detail. It allows a person the objectivity to see any flaws in one’s own thinking and behaviors. It enables a person to delve more closely into whether they are trying to live their life based upon making life better for oneself, others and planet earth. It enables a person to be more humble as well as trying to find an objective truth to a situation. The more a person can search within himself or herself to seek what is beneficial and not blindly defend oneself for any miscalculation the easier it becomes to find a better way forward.

DO NOT LET CERTAIN THINGS DEFINE YOU

All of us have mental images of ourselves. We have thoughts about what others think about our character and capabilities. We have our own beliefs in what we are capable of doing and having. Whether it is low self-esteem or an exaggerated self-confidence, everyone’s mental image of themself determines how they go about living their lives.

Just like any other personal aspects about yourself, being verbally demeaned or discouraged from pursuing something you find interesting can create a mental self image of being incapable of succeeding. You may shy away from things you really want to do only because you think there is little or no chance you are capable of doing it well. The world then becomes one giant do not enter sign.

On the other hand, your belief in yourself can be related to getting encouragement and praise which does wonders when you were a child, or a person of any age, to challenge yourself to try something new. As time goes on, the more you can succeed at various endeavors the more you will keep doing what is personally meaningful and be able to seek out things you never before had done because there are no limits and boundaries in your mind to what is possible and doable.

Do not let other people define who you are. Allowing someone to put you on a pedestal and you soaking that in may create an inflated sense of your capabilities. This is as much a detriment to becoming a grounded human being and finding fulfillment as having an unflattering inner dialogue take hold because someone belittles and mistreats you. Your ability to live your life as you want it requires you to see your flaws as fixable and see your capabilities as an asset which will then enable you to soar to the greatest of heights.

DO NOT LET PROBLEMS CONTINUE

From time to time every human being has something in his or her life that is problematic. They can appear out of nowhere and quickly vanish as if they didn’t happen but still be very annoying and disruptive. The real difficulties that can eat away at us are those unwanted developments that stay with us for months, years or decades.

Too often we believe that certain problematic situations are unchangeable so we endure them. We want them to be gone but we do not know how to rid ourselves of them. They stay with us as if they are a natural part of life yet we know there is nothing natural about an ever present difficulty.

Do not let problems continue. There is nothing to be gained. Life is so much better without problems. The more moments devoted to dealing with something you wish never happened takes away from what you desire to happen in your life, being psychologically and emotionally free to find joy with the people you love and are close to and doing things that you enjoy.

HOW CAN I CREATE MORE HARMONY IN MY LIFE AND IN THE WORLD

Harmony in one’s own life has to be created. Harmony in the world has to be created. Neither one automatically happens.

When you ask yourself the question “which areas of my life are problematic” you are striving to focus your attention on that particular issue in the hopes of freeing yourself of that difficulty. When you ask yourself the question “why am I thinking and acting as I do” you are trying to understand how certain thoughts and actions developed in order to change those thoughts and actions that make your life more difficult. When you ask yourself the question “what if I am wrong” you are attempting to objectively look at yourself for miscalculations in how you think and detrimental behaviors that hinders your ability to have a better life both of which can hinder your ability to effectively contribute to making this a collectively better world. When you tell yourself “do not let certain things define you”, you are making a definitive statement that you will not be affected by any negativity directed at you from other people or from a self inflicted unflattering self image. When you tell yourself “do not let problems continue” you instinctively know that it is a waste of your time and emotional energy to have a difficulty linger as well as fully understanding that what is needed is to have a focus on the solutions as soon as a difficulty appears.

The deeper you look into these questions and statements the more you can develop an inner strength to withstand any outside noise that creates doubt about your good and kind nature. You can see yourself from the perspective of believing in your capabilities and engaging in actions that bring about more personal inner harmony and more harmony for humanity.

After sitting for a while silently looking at one artist’s work that fascinated me and thinking about life I now realize that certain questions and statements can be the awakening that leads me onto a path that not only enhances my life but also makes me a better human being.

DAY 85 – REMOVING USELESS AND DETRIMENTAL THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS (USING COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOR THERAPY, LOGOTHERAPY AND MINDFULNESS)

I just came home and I noticed that there was a stain on my carpet by my front door. Earlier in the morning I was working on my car and I probably brought some grease into the house on the bottom of my shoes. When I tried to rub it out of the carpet it wasn’t easy to get rid of the stain. Eventually the stain did come out but it was more difficult, time consuming and troublesome than I thought it would be.

Getting rid of the most significant personal difficulties a person has to deal with is often like trying to remove a ground in stain on a carpet that doesn’t want to be removed, it is still there no matter what you do. Even some minor problems that are just annoying occur so often that they too seem to be the unremovable stain on the carpet.

Problems are inevitable. The more complex a society is, the more we need people who have the skills to fix what needs mending. When we have a mechanical problem with our cars we go to an auto mechanic to fix it. When we have a problem with our refrigerators, washing machines, plumbing, electrical wiring or anything else in our homes we go to people who can fix that problem. When we have a health issue we go to doctors to try and remedy the ailment. When we have problems when working at a large corporation we can go to human resources to try and fix the issue.

Problems in our personal lives often require someone to help fix it. When we have addictions, an inability to get along with people, difficulties in our most important relationships, excessive worry, easily annoyed, bouts of anger or a sense that life is too burdensome and we do not see how we can change our situation we seek out therapists or counselors who can help us rid ourselves of these troubling circumstances.

Therapists and counselors understand that human beings can become trapped in their own minds by the habitual silent words that we say to ourselves. From those thoughts we develop our behavior habits that we often take with us as we go about our daily lives. While many of our thoughts and behaviors are life enhancing, there are certain silent words that create personal difficulties for oneself or are detrimental to the well being of our fellow human beings. By going to therapy a person can develop insights into how he or she has been affected by past experiences, the thoughts that emanate from those experiences and the behaviors that have enhanced one’s life or made it more difficult. With more insights into one’s own life, a person can then create new thought and behavior habits that increases the likelihood that problems will go away and be replaced with the type of life that each of us wants to have.

When we look closer at the human mind it can reveal so much to us. No one can think about two diametrically opposite things at the exact same time. No one can think about something joyful at the exact same time he or she is thinking that something is terribly wrong. No one can think about liking a person at the exact same time he or she is about thinking how much they hate that person. No one can think about how good and deserving of a better life I can have for myself at the exact same time he or she is thinking that I am not a good person and unworthy of having a decent life.

Human beings cannot also act in two diametrically different ways at a specific moment. No one can act friendly, courteous and respectful at the same moment they are acting unfriendly, discourteous and disrespectful. No one can act thoughtful and helpful at the same moment they ignore someone in their time of need. No one can purposely contribute to making this a better world for all of humanity at the same time they are engaged in actions that make life difficult for other people.

Getting to understand the difference between two polar opposite ways of thinking and behaving is what cognitive and behavior therapy can achieve. Being able to get a better grasp of one’s disturbing thoughts, unproductive thinking and thoughts detrimental to inner harmony can help a person adopt thoughts that are beneficial for oneself. Being able to counter annoyance and anger at other people that creates divides in relationships, human beings can show the good and decent side of themselves in all that they do which is the basis for harmonious interactions and relationships. Breaking patterns of detrimental thinking and behaving that have no useful purpose and are decades old can be difficult to reverse but becomes achievable by developing an awareness of one’s thoughts and behaviors and how they came to be an everyday presence.

Besides the cognitive and behavioral forms of therapy, logotherapy is another type of therapy that helps a person deal with their difficulties. Logotherapy strives to show those who are troubled by life’s events that there are people and things in their life that they gravitate to that are very meaningful to them. Developing an appreciation for what is personally meaningful can help each of us adequately cope with what comes our way by putting life’s difficulties into their proper perspective, something that happens but does not constitute what touches us deeply.

When life does not turn out as we want it to, especially with the more difficult situations, knowing that there are people who we love and care about and who reciprocates such love and caring will give us the needed psychological and emotional support that every human being needs. Spending time with those special few people is uplifting when life is working well but when problems develop that are extremely taxing it is imperative to remember that our loved ones give our life meaning and this can be a life jacket that prevents us from sinking.

Human beings also have certain things that each person’s spirit gravitates towards. We spend our time engaged in pursuing those special wants that are personally meaningful and find it so fulfilling that it plays an important role in our ability to enjoy life. Seeing this when our lives become complicated can be the difference between being overwhelmed by the situation or seeing the forest through the trees with a confidence that our troubles can be successfully navigated.

In addition to cognitive and behavioral therapy and logotherapy we need to add mindfulness into the equation. With mindfulness you become aware of your thoughts while you are having them. You can immediately comprehend which thoughts are detrimental to finding inner harmony when they make you sad, angry, frustrated, worried, scared or fearful. You can immediately realize how you are creating difficulties in your interactions and relationships. You can immediately know that your mind has generated a dialogue that belittles yourself or someone else and that you will be better off without such disdain.

Mindfulness also plays a key role in being aware of your actions. You can immediately see yourself when you take care of your health and when you do not. You can immediately see yourself when you treat other people well and when you do not. You can better comprehend your behaviors in relation to which ones are life enhancing and which ones are detrimental to creating a better life and better world.

There are certain times in everyone’s life where they need someone to be there for them. The world does not have enough therapists and counselors to deal with everyone before or after they have personal issues. A community betterment project can play an important role in helping people to prevent useless and detrimental thoughts and behaviors from taking hold as well as helping their fellow community members to remove useless and detrimental thought and behavior habits that they live with. Community meetings can be set up where people can find the necessary safety and security to seek help. The world changes for the better when we can be there for one another, sometimes giving help and at other times getting help, in community after community around the world.

The difficulties that I have to deal with that make my life more difficult and complicated than I want it to be can take a psychological and emotional toll on me. With the goal of finding more inner harmony, I now realize that I can replace my old ways of thinking and behaving that have a detrimental effect upon my life with new ways of thinking and behaving that have a beneficial effect upon my life. I can also replace any annoyances and anger that I have by focusing my attention upon the people who mean the most to me along with the things that I enjoy doing. By being mindful of how I am thinking, behaving and what is meaningful to me I can better deal with whatever comes my way.

DAY 86 – FORM SMALL GROUPS TO UPLIFT ONE ANOTHER AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

My mother had a best friend since they both were in the fifth grade. While I do not recall both families interacting that often when I was a kid, I do know that they talked on the phone or met quite often since we lived two blocks from each other.

Human beings usually have no more than one or two best friends in which they can confide in. Just like my mother and her best friend, most of the time our best friends have many similar beliefs and interests. When needing someone to talk to about a problem they are having, we get from our best friends insights and advice that are often very similar to one’s own way of analyzing and dealing with life. What we need is alternative ways of living our life and handling our difficulties that may have more relevance and benefits than sticking to our usual ways of thinking and behaving.

Becoming part of a small group of five to ten people who have various personalities, beliefs and interests along with having a common goal to discover better ways of living their lives will give each member the ability to be heard and understood. All members of the group can feel free enough to share what is personally meaningful and when difficulties arise for any participant, they have a diversity of opinions and ideas at one another’s disposal that they might not normally have considered. Opening up a world of beneficial possibilities that expands the horizons for each member can be life altering.

Another facet of being part of a small group is that each person may have a specific community issue that they find of utmost importance. By talking about it within their group they can collectively do research and find how people in other communities have successfully dealt with that issue. They can then take what they consider to be the best ideas and insights that they have uncovered, along with volunteering their time, and assist those individuals and groups who are trying to do good for their fellow community members. The more small groups within a community devoted to helping others the greater the possibility that the lives of everyone is changed for the better.

I now realize that being part of a small group can enable each person to acquire more knowledge about life along with helping one another to deal with personal issues. In addition, members of a small group can be a force for good that effectively contributes their time and energy that makes a real difference in the lives of their fellow neighbors.

DAY 87 – A WORLD FILLED WITH MESSENGERS/ACTIVISTS

On a fateful night in 1775 Paul Revere and two other compatriots had an important role to play in human history when they became messengers. By riding from town to town telling their fellow citizens that British troops are on their way they helped them prepare to protect themselves from those troops. In addition, other fellow compatriots who heard this message also got on their horses to relay this life saving call to other people in the surrounding countryside which resulted in even more of their fellow compatriots to become ready to protect themselves.

In our ever more complex and intertwined world of the twenty-first century, being informed about life altering ideas and innovations is the first step for something new to eventually become part of everyday living. A spark has to take place where an individual person or a group of people start telling their relatives, friends, co-workers or anyone else ready to listen about it. When more and more people become messengers and they believe in the validity and beneficial aspects of an idea or innovation and incorporate it into their lives, that is when the chain reaction of each messenger has shown its true worth. This is no different than the initial spark and chain reaction that Paul Revere and his two companions set out to do and accomplished that fateful night.

Just because human beings become informed about something doesn’t mean they will act upon it. Imagine what would have happened if the warnings that Paul Revere and all the other riders set out to do would have been ignored or not believed. What would have happened if the members of those towns became spectators and expected other people to change their collective circumstances. The world before and after a profound message has been disseminated would be no different because spectators do not change the world but active participants are the ones who make all the difference.

In one way or another all of us have to be activists in order for the world to evolve for the better. It doesn’t mean that we should just rely upon protesting as the only way the world changes. It doesn’t mean that we have to try and force the changes each of us wants to see happen upon others. It doesn’t mean becoming angry at those who do not agree with our annoyances and pain. Activism means raising our consciousness to the point where we have greater awareness of what the problems are and what each of us needs to do to change those circumstances. Activism at its heart is giving our time and energy to rectify problematic situations whether they are one’s own, someone’s who we care about and know or strangers locally or in far away lands.

Looking at life we see activism everywhere. The people who start worthwhile non-profits and the people who volunteer their time helping non-profits are activists. The people who set out to right a wrong are activists. The people who send a message of support to a stranger after hearing about their plight are activists. The people who in a time of crisis that go out of their way to help their fellow human beings are activists. The person who conducts their daily affairs in ways that help the earth to become a clean and sustainable environment for all life is an activist. The person who strives to raise their children in the best way possible is an activist. The person who strives to have better interactions and relationships by treating people with kindness, consideration and respect is an activist. We may not have thought about the little things we do in our everyday lives that makes someone’s life better as activism, but the alternative of not doing those small beneficial acts leaves everyone’s life just a little bit worse off.

After thinking about Paul Revere and what he and his fellow riders did that night I now realize that on a local scale every community needs people who send out a message of hope, inspiration and insight. It then becomes incumbent upon their fellow community members to take this knowledge and become actively engaged for the greater whole that changes the world for the better.

DAY 88 – PRIORTIZING LIFE

When I had graduated college five years ago I went to a party afterwards at the parent’s home of my best friend in college. That afternoon I spent time talking to the grandmother of my friend. We talked about her life and I learned things that my friend never told me about his grandmother’s amazing life. I found out that this woman has been at the forefront of making a real difference in the lives of people all over the planet.

When she was seven years old and her parents were walking with her to a nearby store she saw a man asking for money for food. She did not know why he was doing this and her parents said he had no money and no place to live. She then asked her parents if there were other people also homeless and without food. When she was told that were many other people in the same situation it affected her so much that she wanted to change this. This little girl, with the help of her parents, started a group in her town of young children aided by their parents to help people who did not have food to eat or a place to live.

She continued on with helping people in her teens and twenties and created a list for herself of issues that she wanted to prioritize her life around. While most people center on one or two issues, she had the instinct to know she was developing an expertise that could be beneficially used to help her fellow human beings in many different situatios in their time of distress.

Looking at human difficulties, whether local or in other countries, she became an advisor to various organizations that had worthwhile goals into how to mobilize their communities into actions that altered the human landscape for the better. This took her to over fifty countries around the planet with each one coming away for the better because she wanted to help.

This wise woman told me that in every case where she devoted her time to helping make life better for other people she had to prioritize one problematic issue over other problematic situations. Often she would go to places where the difficulties people faced were not as monumental as somewhere else. The point she was trying to convey was that just giving your time to helping others is all that matters.

She also made a point of differentiating between spending our precious time dealing with issues that would resolve themselves in the near term at the expense of devoting ouresleves to issues that are of much greater significance because of their long term consequences. Just seeing what is right in front of us does not necessarily make it one’s only priority. Short term thinking can blind us to the bigger picture of life. Without the ability to distinguish between short term difficulties that will be gone sooner than later we often forget that certain problems can become magnified over time and will not be gone without a concerted effort of intervention.

She reminded me that when something happens that can affect human beings in every corner of the planet, as did the covid 19 pandemic, it does not distinguish one human being from any other human being. When this happens it is the signal that our collective human efforts need to deal with it right at that moment. In all life altering events that threatens the well-being of humanity it is absolutely necessary and essential to become united to defeat such a world wide situation for the sake of one another.

The same thing can be said about climate change in the twenty-first century. We know that the lives of every human being alive today as well as the lives of human beings in future generations are at stake. Prioritizing some of our time to insuring the earth functions optimally for life itself needs to be at the forefront of everyone’s consciousness and actions that are as monumental as the monumental changes that climate change creates.

After talking to this woman who had done so much good in her life I now realize that I have to prioritize my time towards certain issues whether they are smaller or larger in scope so I can make a huge difference in the lives of other people and in how the earth functions.

DAY 89 – USING WHAT WORKS

Years ago I met a man who ran a small city run governmental operation that helped recently released inmates from prison reorient themselves back into society. He told me that they had a ninety seven percent success rate and that only three percent of these men were reincarcerated. I asked them how many men his operation has helped and he said that there were three hundred men.

I started to think about the success this operation has achieved. Having three hundred men use these services with only three percent being returned to prison meant nine men did not successfully deal with their new found freedom while two hundred ninety one men created a life for themselves based upon living their lives in a manner that they didn’t do before. Over time I had constantly read about or saw reports on television about how there was a high rate of recidivism for former inmates. Here was a small organization set up by a municipality that found a way to talk to and give the type of support and encouragement that enabled former inmates to successfully deal with life after prison.

I have also seen other reports on tv about programs in a few prisons that have changed the attitudes of the people incarcerated there. When a person’s attitude is changed it means that their silent words are now different than before. With different silent words come different behaviors. With different behaviors over time come different ingrained habits. With different ingrained habits come a different human being. Such change is real and lasting.

When I started to think about all of this it became evident that too often we do not look at what works somewhere else on this planet and apply it to problems right where we live. We continually use the same methods to run a business entity, to govern a municipality or to administer to a nation that the next generation of administrators and workers inherit and adopt in their everyday affairs. Long lasting and profound new outcomes that change people’s lives for the better often require doing something differently.

If we are not striving for the best possible outcome in whatever we are doing we are then not giving our best to resolving problematic situations. Yes, we will not have everything in life fall in line as we want it to, but we still need to find the best way forward. Looking at what others have done to create a personal life with fewer personal difficulties makes personal sense. Looking at what other organizations have done to enhance their communities can be so insightful that it can be the guide post that makes it easier to bring about the desired beneficial outcome. Looking at what the citizens in other communities have done to create the long lasting underpinnings for fewer community wide problems can be the methodology by which one’s own community can use to uplift everyone living there.

I now realize that using what works somewhere else is necessary if we are to resolve issues that we haven’t solved. There are too many situations in community after community that stay the same because we are continually doing what we have done over the decades. The information and insights into how we can create a better personal life and a collectively better world is available to us if we choose to seek it out and use it.

DAY 90 – MAXIMIZING OUR EFFORTS (TIME GOES BY NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO)

When I was younger I was lazy. I would hang out with my friends and would seldom do anything that was productive or beneficial for myself. In my junior year in high school my parents became friends with a couple who owned a local art gallery. They gave me a job that at first I was reluctant to accept. Taking this job was the best decision I had ever made. It changed the course of my life.

As I was learning about my job at the gallery I was also learning more about art. The owners of the store would have paintings displayed at their store with the artists often coming into the store who I often talked to. There would be art lessons given twice a month by some of these artists that I attended as part of my job. I began to find all of this interesting. Within two months of being there I new that I also wanted to become an artist.

I started to read about famous artists including the type of art they had painted. I would read art books in order to gain more insights into the different styles of art. My mind would constantly focus upon the inner depths of art that transformed itself over the years into thinking about life more intently. By the time I graduated high school I understood that time goes by no matter what I do and I need to use it wisely with a specific end in sight.

It is now the twentieth anniversary of my first day working at the art gallery. I not only have my own art gallery but I also became a distinguished artist with exhibits around the world. I spend my time enthusiastically creating paintings that I am passionate about that other people enjoy and giving art lessons to young people in city after city.

While not everyone will become an artist that has some notoriety, there is something each and every human being enjoys doing. It is here that each of us needs to spend some of our time maximizing one’s efforts in order to become more proficient and productive at what we do.

Creating a better life for oneself and creating a collectively better world for all of us is no different than becoming better at what you enjoy doing. Time and effort has to go into it because a better personal life and a better collective world will not automatically happen. There has never been a personal or societal problem that is successfully resolved that doesn’t require thinking about it, trying to find a solution for it and then taking the necessary steps to remedy it. Maximizing our efforts instead of unproductive and non-beneficial use of our time is essential if we are to create something that is better than what we presently have.

I now realize that time is a precious resource that should not be wasted. Moments in everyone’s life go by irrespective of what I or anyone else does and by setting aside time to raise my consciousness and to engage in endeavors that are both beneficial for myself and humanity, I will be effectively using this resource called time.

DAY 91 – THE INTERCONNECTED MODERN WORLD CAN CHANGE THE WORLD – NEW AND BETTER WAYS OF LIVING LIFE CAN BE PASSED ON QUICKLY

Earlier this year I bought a new iphone. I have had a few iphones and with each succeeding one there were more features on it that enabled me to do more with this device than the previous one.

I started to remember back to my childhood in the 1950’s where my parents had a rotary phone connected to the wall in the kitchen. The only use for it was to make or receive calls. If I wanted to talk to someone when I was outside playing or was away from home I had to wait until I went into my home, went into the kitchen and dialed the phone number. If the person I wanted to talk to was already talking to another person on his or her phone there was a busy signal with no ability to leave a message. I would then have to try another time to reach out to that person.

I also started to think back to my childhood where my parents bought me a set of 19 volumes of an encyclopedia alphabetically arranged from A to Z with another 10 volumes of added material. Each volume had at least one thousand pages of information categorized into tens of thousands of topics. At that time, this was the only way where anyone could read about so many different topics from a single source either at home or in a library.

The one thing about a volumized encyclopedia was that everything in it contained information that was discovered in the months, years, decades and centuries prior to its publishing. The only way at that time to know what was happening in the immediate hours or days after it occurred was to watch the news on tv, listen to news broadcast on the radio or read a newspaper or magazine. If these sources didn’t disseminate specific information that you were interested in, it was unlikely you would know what was going on in the world pertaining to your interests.

Jump forward to the world of today. Because of computers, laptops, the internet and iphones, people can now have almost instantaneous knowledge and information about anything that is occurring on this planet. We do not have to sit by a tv or a radio or read a newspaper or magazine to get the latest news that is disseminated through these mediums. They could never relay to us all that we may want to know about because these entities have only a limited capacity because of time and space. As long as there is a nearby wifi connection, we can now be anywhere and access information that is on the world wide web.

It now may be easier than at any other time to change the entire human world for the better. Knowledge is key to reducing or completely eliminating personal and societal difficulties. Knowing the underlying causes for the issues that develop into our hardships and how they have been successfully dealt with can now be passed on from person to person, group to group and community to community around the planet with just a posting. Because the internet has no limiting boundaries, we can now reach one another by using our expanding insights into life to create a unity of purpose around the planet that ushers in a better future for all of humanity.

No longer do we have to accept as inevitable that people in one’s own backyard or anywhere else on this planet have to have the same problems as our ancestors. We do not have to have personal relationship problems. We do not have to have people disliking and hating certain people because of the group they belong to. We do not have to have environmental problems. We do not have to have people going hungry or without a decent home to live in. This and so much more has been the negative part of each generation’s world even though there have been solutions to these difficulties. If we want to end the pattern of generation after generation after generation finding themselves in the same predicaments, now is the time to use the age of social media to reach out to people all over the planet. Is there any other way to create a world wide effort where all of us are on the same page?

I now realize that we do not have to wait for and rely upon someone else to be proactive and the catalyst for solving human difficulties. The internet has the potential to give us insights into the why’s of our problems and the how to’s that remedy our ills along with the forum where large segments of society come together for one another’s benefit. Humanity has always wanted something that goes beyond the now and today’s transformative ideas and methodologies can be passed on more quickly and the call to action can be heard everywhere.