Millions of important things have been communicated by the sages through time and published in the books of ancient libraries, but when asking a random person on the street about what is important the response is generally selfish and of little real worth. Today is the age of the most advanced education the earth has seen. The most advanced forms of learning are available to us but generally people don’t know what is truly important to them. The random man will argue and fight for what they want but the result of this fight often produces the opposite of what he feels he is working so hard to achieve.
We are not clearly taught right from wrong in our schools, and other social groups today. Individual teachers, counselors and others try to instill truth but the system is not conducive to such training in the current atmosphere. The traditional role of religion was to teach these morals and support the family in its role to instill right doing in the youthful citizens. But this is not the accepted way to teach right and wrong now days, although proven successful with the human race in thousands of communities . Now we are taught compliance, acceptance and sameness. Mostly from the television, internet, and public educational programs. These are confusing ideas to all age groups without clear boundaries and a lack of clarification of meanings and guiding principles . Promoting confusion can definitely play an important role in achieving a specific agenda and I wonder sometimes about the validity of this idea with the absurd things done in the media. The possible solutions to common problems are completely ignored. Why is it that society spends its resources on the symptoms instead of the cause of the problem?
Making sure that each human being has the opportunity to reach their goals is important. The trouble is only a small percentage of people know how to set and achieve worthy goals. Why again do schools exist? Laws are made and education is reformed to ensure the student is inspired. The result is an advanced case of confusion and a few more government jobs to carry out the mandate. Goals really are important for the level headed and organized mind. I have never seen a public program help the individual level his head or organize her mind. This could mean trouble to our young generation. The worthy goal for an individual starts with the work and art of thinking.
Thinking starts the mind on adventures that become reality. Thinking is the human activity that transforms the ethereal into reality. Thinking builds buisnesses, fills needs and creates wealth. Thinking solves problems. The definition of thinking can be difficult to define because of the many pre conceived notions and varying views in existence on the subject but I will venture to say that most people do not think if they do not have to! They simply conform to the path of least resistance that suits their selfish desires. They could choose to think up a new brilliant idea that could help life be happier and healthier in fact people do this all the time. But not everybody who could does it, in fact only a few do it and that is the sadness of this story because the tens of thousands of people who have the ability and even the desire to do something good choose not to because it is easier not to. Thinking can be hard. In fact the best thinking is often very draining on the mind and body. But like all hard work it is worth it and rewarding. Thinking is important!
Good hard thinking is a generator. It generates the ideas to work from in the first place to create the things that give life its treasures. Joseph Stalin once said “Ideas are more powerful than guns, we do not give our enemies guns so why should we give them ideas?” Another man said: “For every man who is saying: “that idea will never work” there is another man proving him wrong by accomplishing the idea into reality.” Ideas are important!
I have introduced three important things here: Thinking, goal setting and knowing right from wrong. All three are important to achieve the fullness of our human potential. I know there are hundreds even thousands of things besides these three that are important to a quality life but without these three we will suffer the tragedy of human mediocrity and we will most likely fall into the path of least resistance with millions of others who simply did not invest the time in their life of good hard thinking.
The tone, timing, atmosphere and circumstances of communication is also important. The best of communication can be the worst depending on the interpretation of the receiver. The example of a messenger giving the same message to different audiences is a great teacher of the folly of human nature. By one audience he is praised and by another he is killed. The messenger did not change his message he did not change himself but the reaction he received was drastically different.
So say an individual in todays world overcomes their circumstance of conflicting information concerning morality and they invest their days wisely in the process of valuable thinking and they create a goal worthy of their thoughts and they achieve this goal by doing something or creating something, or inventing something or whatever it is they realized from their investment in their pursuit…. Say they did this, and let me be clear: they were a success in the achievement of their goal, and they made the world a better place than they found it. Then they are thanked, they are cheered for, they are given public recognition, or they are rewarded with a great payment of money for services rendered or they are simply gratified by the accomplishment of their dream. Say this all comes about and it seems that the universe smiles upon this individual and all is well in the galaxy, the stars shine brilliant, the moon beams down on crystal glass ponds where gentle summer breezes cool the banks where bullfrogs croak in a romantic serenade. In times like these all is right in the world to the man and woman who enjoy success, the young fall in love, the grass is greener, the fruit ripens sweet, and the flocks multiply with healthy newborn calves. The romance of life is fulfilled.
During all this glory and celebration of human success we encounter a falsehood. Our pride denies it. We argue to defend ourselves against it. But it exists in spite of the good we have done for the world. It has nothing to do with our contribution to humanity. It does not celebrate with us because it cannot. It is hurt because of our success. Its pain continues because we are and have achieved. You see, we are the messenger with a brilliantly bright message and we brought the darkness light. The falsehood is believed by the King who would kill the messenger because he needed darkness to rule his subjects. We are the messenger who suffered the long trail of education and while we rejoice in knowledge, the ignorant ask “what are you going to do with that degree?” We are the messenger who crossed the rugged mountains to bring a warning of an enemy to villages and while resting in the shade of the oak we are told to go back home. We are the missionaries who have stood up to temptation, lived a moral life of dedication to God and traveled by our own expense to foreign lands with a message of hope to a troubled world and we are told we are wasting our time. We are the entrepreneur who develops a product that raises the standard of living and we are highly misunderstood. But what is the false belief? Well it is a two sided coin. On one side we believe that the accomplishment of our goal is the crown of our success, the top, the end, the final achievement, the greatest thing we will ever do, the fact is it is the beginning of our real mission of life. On the other side of the coin is the interpretation of those who receive our message: treacherous territory for emotional health. You see the light bulb is a good thing if you need light at night but a bad thing if you are comfortable in the dark so I bet it was said more than once that Edison wasted his time and resources that could have been spent in better ways like feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. But now through the microscope of education we know that the invention of the light bulb has prevented more hunger and clothed more people than we can begin to count. But this false kind of thinking is an ever present plague that inflicts its self upon the human condition and it must be fought against always. The wise and the foolish will both stand together as equals while suffering from theses false beliefs. Thus forgiveness must also be important.
Forgiving ourselves for believing our pride is important. Forgiving others for their false beliefs about us is important. Forgiving the world for its ignorance is important. Forgiving our thoughts in spite of our thinking is important. Forgiving our goals though they brought us pleasure is important. Forgiving our knowledge, though we truly own it, is also important. Forgiveness spawns creation, removes the lid from the bottle of flees and gives ladders to the buckets of crabs. Forgiveness creates opportunity undreamed of and unrolls the red carpet of royalty to all mankind individually. And on this sidewalk the person may walk the path of royalty to the full potential he was born to become. And so love must reach the crowning position of the things that are important.
Can it be described? Accuracy will suffer in the feeble attempt to define it. The song will be sung of it as long as men will breathe. God will require it as long as the world shall turn in its orbit. The dust of the road and the waves of the sea will obey its purity. It will not perish like the bodies that possess it for a short time in their mortal journey. Thus it is a free gift to the human child throughout his life. He will do with it what he will. It has been both shamed and multiplied. It has been misunderstood and maligned. It is the greatest power in the universe and because of it the world was spoken into existence as a road for the man to travel upon. Love is as mysterious as the unsettling feeling one gets in their stomach as they witness the evening sunset when the rays of golden light shine across the majestic cliffs of sandstone in the deep canyons of juniper and pinion where long ago native peoples called this bitter place of rock and sand, heat and cold, their home. Love ties the generations together from the arrowhead to the cellphone and the cliff dwelling to the Lexus. Love does what no other force can do. Love is the power of accomplishment like the photon from the sun millions of miles away powers the cell to make sugar in the blade of grass. Love has the trickery to blind the mind and enhance the intellect in the same moment. In conclusion I have only one suggestion of what is truly important to the query of human excellence: From the words of the greatest individual to ever walk the earth. Love one another.
