In examining problems, I have been trained to look at the root cause of any issue.  Band-aid solutions don’t work as the band-aid, the “fix,” never addresses the actual issue.  The only way to fix anything is to get to the heart of it and to put in the work to make it right.

The world is filled with many dynamic personalities that don’t always coalesce when it comes to progress.  In fact, we have become a society that seems to support the “me first” approach to daily living.  Little things from cutting people off while driving to standing too close to people in lines all demonstrate that we have very little concern for each other.  It also demonstrates another problem in this society which is that we have learned to avoid any sense of personal responsibility.  You have to cut that person off because you can’t be late to work again; never mind that you could have left for work 20 minutes earlier or skipped stopping for coffee today, it’s this person’s fault for driving slow.  I am here to tell you that we need to be accountable for our actions because that is the only way to effect change.  I digress.

Taking a step back for a moment, it is important to consider that we are bombarded by media selling us everything—and we buy into this because we never stop to ask ourselves what it is that we really want or need.  It’s easier to believe that we need the latest phone, the $100 pair of jeans than it is to accept a lot of what is happening in the world.  People are dying from vaccines, from tainted food and water, cancers from GMO food and pollution is rampant, the world is dying.  But it’s easy to forget all of that if we manage to have the latest and greatest of anything.

SO much of the negative behavior people exhibit (specifically toward each other but also toward themselves) is because their needs are being denied on some level.  Whether perceived or not, the fact is that we are lacking.  We live in a society where it’s more important to have the most advanced technology rather than assure that people’s health and well-being are seen to.  We fight each other on Thanksgiving to get the best deal on more crap that we don’t need.  We spend our lives working and working, spending hours away from our families only to have money, then we are too tired to spend the time with our family to enjoy the money.  My friends, this life is about love and creating memories that money can’t buy.

We have forgotten to look inside.  We look outside of ourselves in order to satisfy whatever it is we think we are looking for.  We fail to understand that looking outside is only a distraction.  I urge you all to look INWARD.  The answers to what you want or need are all there.  We know what we want.  We are afraid to accept that we don’t really need that $500 phone and that we could be happier actually communicating with people.

Once you have the courage to look inside, I urge you to look even deeper than that.  Look at what you really need.  That amount of introspection and self-examination can be difficult to handle for some, and change can be painful no matter how you look at it. But we need to understand and differentiate what is really important and what is not.  Only then can we begin to take personal responsibility and make the changes necessary to create a more functional world.

So many painful events seem to have taken over the world in the last few days.  I find myself pondering whether or not there is the option, the ability to change any of that.

I feel like we are meant to understand that there are more important things on this planet.  We shifted our thoughts regarding religion and leadership many times before and we are able to do that again.  A pattern, a system no longer suits the needs of the people it governs and we change it. It is time to do that again.

I don’t think a higher power created this universe, this Earth, these beings to allow it to go to shit.  It is most assuredly our responsibility to fix it.

People say that money is the root of all evil.  I would amend that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.  The love of something changes how we look at it. When we love something, we would do anything for it.  We have to stop loving money.  That shifts our focus.  We have replaced our irreplaceable world with material possessions.  We have the luxury of being able to choose what we want to do with our time.  We are no longer in actual survival mode (as compared to our hunter/gatherer predecessors) as most of our needs are provided for us or we are able to obtain them with relative ease.  Because of this, we are able to create a system that allows for frivolity.  The monetary system was designed with the intention of providing freedom for those who work for it. Our idea of value became skewed and we no longer understand where true value lies.

I have to say that I truly don’t believe any higher power would have put anyone in these terrible situations, taken them out of it only to allow it to continue happening.  We are meant to WAKE UP and to learn from the terrible things that happen on this Earth and to improve upon them.  We are meant to see that there is more to this world than money and fear.

I understand perfectly that this world, this system we have created, with a money hungry society, with the mentality that our actions don’t affect others, with the belief that we still have to fight for survival is NOT WORKING.  The system is broken. It benefits few, harms most, destroys the earth and perpetuates that cycle.   I have to believe that we are meant to do more than consume, maim, hurt, and destroy each other. We are meant to find what love really means.  We are meant to unify and care for our precious lives.  That means all lives.