Perhaps it was the events of yesterday, or perhaps I just need to get it out, but I awoke this morning with the desire to share one of my personal philosophies with the world so here it goes….if it doesn’t speak to anyone else, at least, perhaps people will better understand where I am coming from.
All to frequently we race through life doing what we are supposed to do, or what others or society thinks that we should do, or what we need to do to make ends meet. Rarely do we stop and ask ourselves, “to what end?” or “for what purpose?” unless something happens in our lives that causes us to stop and ask these questions. Unfortunately, that major life event is frequently tragic and hard to recover from, but we feel that in the end, we have made change for the better. However, it is not actually necessary to lose everything you hold near and dear to make this change. You need to ask yourself, “What do I want?” And there are two categories to this, there is the, “what do I want for myself and my immediate surroundings?” and the, “what do I want for the world?” What I want for myself and my immediate surroundings consists of what I want my day to day to look like. For me personally, I want to eat food that was picked when it’s ready to eat or raised in a way that didn’t cause suffering. I want to do some kind of work that is fulfilling, even if it is not the job that butters my bread. I want to work enough to do a good job, but not at the sacrifice of my mind, body, spirit or family. When I say family I mean those closest to me, which at the moment, for me personally means, my husband and our two dogs, but we plan to expand. I want to live in close proximity to others that share my values. I want to drink clean water and breathe clean air. I want to have the time to read a book or break bread with friends or walk my dogs in the hills. I want to have the ability to make people happy in some way, be it with a smile, or an act of kindness or an act of gratitude. But each of us has their own desires. It keeps things interesting
“What I want for the world” is not to be confused with “what I think that others should do.” I actually am a huge proponent of personal responsibility and feel that contributing to the greater good is worth while. What I want for the world is more of a large scale value system “want,” which helps guide my choices. I want to live in a world where people are open and honest with each other. I want to live in a world where trust is valued and people look out for one another. I want to live in a world where people are understanding and compassionate and the first priority is not finding someone on whom to pin the blame for things not going as planned. I want to live in a world that celebrates people’s desire to learn and to teach and to explore. I want to be a be a good listener because I think that when we take the time to articulate our ideas, we can identify what it is that we are striving for. I want a world that reaches for understanding how and why we do the things we do. Let us spark creativity! I want to live in a world that doesn’t create huge amounts of trash. I want the waste stream to be diverted and combed for resources that could be used instead of making new stuff from raw materials unnecessarily. I understand the concept of economic growth and how it fits in our economy, but I think that because of some choices that we, as a country, made in the past, we have created a vast chasm between what we need and how we get it. Every company has a CEO whose job it is, is to not let his company’s share price go down in value. I want to live in a world where every company has a CVO, Chief Values Officer, that makes sure that whatever decision is being made has been thought about and investigated as to what the ramifications might be. I want that information to be shared with the shareholders so that they can make an informed decision. I don’t think that the world is full of back-stabbing assholes doing everything they can to get ahead. I just think that we don’t have enough information available for people to make an informed decision. There has been some great work made on this front with labeling and small businesses producing things that are good for people and for the land, but they are struggling to succeed against food that that is produced by giant, vertically integrated oil/ag companies because it is hard to afford.
I want to live in a world that celebrates diversity. I want to honor what we each bring to the table from our cultures, our communities and our lives. Not only would it be impossible to satisfy the needs and desires of everyone if we all wanted the same thing, but it would be boring. Variety is the spice of life. It’s what makes life exciting.
I want to live in a world where the focus is shifted away from immigration policies and we begin to scrutinize our trade agreements to figure out how the bottom fell out of our economy. I want to live in a world where people are paid a fair price for work well done. I want to live in a world where it is not a race to the bottom. I want to live in a world where we collaborate to try to find the solution to fix every problem we have and we listen with open ears to the ideas of our fellow citizens. I am ready to pull up my sleeves and get my hands dirty. A lot of people are. I want to live in a world where I feel good about every tax dollar I spend because I know that the majority of each dollar is going towards things that I want to support such as education, transportation and healthcare rather than an inefficient military industrial complex that makes choices that I don’t agree with and a farm bill that continues to subsidize corn over all other farming commodities simply because that is the way that it has been for so long and we are either unable to comprehend changing it or because whoever doesn’t want it changed can afford better lobbyists. To this end, I ask you to stop and ask yourself, what do YOU want? How can the choices that you make in your everyday life guide you to the tomorrow that you want to see.
Thanks for listening.
Lia
