How To Make The World A Better Place, Step 1

[brain5000]

My topic this week for Team @QuestionMan in the #BATTLEROYALE is "Society and Culture." I actually have spent a lot of time thinking about this and writing. Then I deleted an enormous wall of text to get to the heart of the matter.

There are all kinds of movements for equal rights and justice: feminism, black lives matter, civil rights, trans rights … you name it. A lot of them are demanding justice. People want a fair and equal society, the promise of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution - “equal protection." The keyword here is "equal."

Some even want it to extend beyond law, to society itself. Equal pay. Equal respect. Equal treatment from law enforcement. No citizen is allowed to spy on another citizen. You name it.

I want this to be a very brief Take about what it means to believe in something.

When people subscribe to a religion, or a movement, or any kind of belief, they often see it as a way to demand something of others. While this might often seem fair and appropriate, before you do that, ask yourself if you are living up to your own beliefs.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." — Matthew 7:3-5

If you are demanding equality and fairness, are you, in fact, treating others the way you would like to be treated?

You might look at the world in terms of people who have versus people who want, and the people who have must give to those who want.

That isn’t how the world works. Each of us has power over others, and others have power over each of us. This probably isn’t going to change, but the rules that govern this should be fair and not based on factors beyond our control.

God does not forbid you to be kind and equitable to those who have neither fought against your faith nor driven you out of your homes. In fact God loves the equitable." — Holy Qur'an Chapter 60, Verse 8

When you believe society should operate a certain way, before you demand anything of anyone else, demand from yourself first.

If you don't know what you're living for, you haven't yet lived.” – Rabbi Noah Weinberg

Societal change starts from within each of us. A better world starts in your heart. Your world will be created out of what emerges from your soul.

Make it great.

[bryon]

This is in effect why I loath hearing of another group cropping up beating their drum for equal this or that. They in reality don't want equal they just want what they want and have no problem what so ever in squashing others that don't see it their way in their attempts to get what they want. It's really the old adage keeping up with the Jone's. It's ludacris to think that taking from those that have more because they work hard and give it to those that refuse to work is a viable reality in a functional society. Breaking the back of the working class does not produce anything other than a weaker nation period and it never has. I can agree that changing anything has to come from within our own hearts. Charitableility and helping another person is the direct result of a good heart rather than being forced to give or do it. This world is sorely lacking in that aspect.

[brain5000]

DISCLAIMER: this is not the message I was trying to get across.

[Anonymous]

A planet that its cultures live under structure and order void of all wrong doers, druggies, criminals, and bigots of all type. It a value system I adopted for my self in 1965 and works well for me in how I view the way of this world.

[brain5000]

Huh? I don't understand. Are you sure you typed that right?

[Opinion Owner]

It should said for me in how I view the world.