Can mankind put aside greed and envy in the New Year and focus on self-awareness and solving problems instead?
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Being around my wife’s four nephews and one niece on Christmas Day; watching them unwrap their gifts, was an unsolicited social experiment where I happened to be an observer of human behavior. The ages of my wife’s nephews and one niece ranged between seven to 10 years old. At this stage of their young lives, Christmas Day is probably the most exciting day of the year, second only to their birthdays.
“Why didn’t I get the remote control car instead of the bow and arrow toy?”… all I could say was “be thankful” and walked away.
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As a family Christmas tradition, we called each child up to the Christmas tree to receive their gift, with me asking each child “what do you say?” The response from each of the children was a gleeful “thank you.” Right after the gifts were unwrapped, the children quickly looked over at their siblings’ gifts to see what their brother or sister had received. Interestingly enough, all of the kids were creating a stockpile of their gifts, holding on to them closely while simultaneously looking over at the gifts that their siblings had received. To my surprise, one of the boys walked up to me and asked, “why didn’t I get the remote control car instead of the bow and arrow toy?” With no quick answer to offer my wife’s nephew, all I could say in response to the young lad was “be thankful” and walked away.
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This episode was a timely reminder that the prying observers mentality and greed, are innate human characteristics that all of us are born with, and because of this, our individual and collective number-one task as we make our transition from “womb to tomb,” to borrow a phrase from Dr. Cornel West, is to overcome our “savage” tendencies (overcoming the greed and envy). A hero of mine, Robert F. Kennedy, who was long deceased before I was born, said in a speech on the day Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, “let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”
If we have men traveling in space making mind-blowing discoveries, and if we have developed nuclear arsenals that can blow the world up a hundred times over, one cannot simply say that the big societal challenges facing us are unsolvable.
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So stop and think how many social injustices occur as a result of our greed and savage behavior. From wars to terrorism, child abuse to sexual abuse, bullying to infidelity, classism to racism, and fraud to corruption…. the list goes on.
Now let’s think of how many societal injustices can be solved if we dedicate our time, energies and brainpower to solving life’s great challenges. I’d like to think that the incurable diseases like cancer and HIV/Aids could be a thing of the past. The pollution that we all inhale could be overcome and maybe we could even solve the age old problem of global hunger. The nay-sayers will say that this is wishful ideological thinking but I have to point out; if we have men traveling in space making mind-blowing discoveries, and if we have developed nuclear arsenals that can blow the world up a hundred times over, one cannot simply say that the big societal challenges facing us are unsolvable. It’s definitely not a lack of resources, it’s simply a lack of will or better yet, a failure of all of us to overcome our innate selfishness and savage ways.
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On a personal level, many of our relationship problems we encounter with family and friends stem from our selfish and self-absorbed behavior and I am not removing myself from this criticism. This is because past friendships and relationships went awry due to my own selfishness which is why my daily challenge (and New Year’s resolution) is to overcome my own savage ways.
What is truly needed are more self-awareness trackers that can remind us how many times in a day we fail to tap into our better human nature whenever our savage tendencies kick in.
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What we need are fewer fit bits and I-Watches. What is truly needed instead are more self-awareness trackers that can remind us how many times in a day we fail to tap into our better human nature whenever our savage tendencies kick in. To solve both personal and societal problems, we must dedicate our efforts to the daily challenge to seek the good in ourselves and others, and most importantly, “tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”.
It’s true, the beginning of a New Year offers all of us the opportunity to reflect and hit the reset button. However, if we fail to acknowledge our shortcomings and negative behavior, we will all end up at the same place this time next year.
Can we do better? Of course we can.
Will we do better? I’ll let you the reader, decide.
Happy New Year!
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