The New Year is creeping every closer. Just a few more days until Sunday and it will be 2017.
When I was a kid in the 1950’s, I often thought about the year 2000 and beyond. I thought it would be a magical time where most problems of health and poverty would be solved and I thought that surely by then the world would find a way to be at peace. I thought people would travel around in “sky cars” sort of like the Jetsons and that there would be devices to take care of human needs. I thought human beings would be living together like the people in the Coke commercials. Singing together in “perfect harmony”.
I think maybe if we, the human race, had spent as much money and effort on the problems of health and poverty, and on finding ways of helping our fellow man instead of on wars, weapons of wars and ways to destroy each other we might have seen that idealistic world I dreamed off as a child. Instead, the rich have become richer and the poor have gotten poorer, and our divisions have deepened.
Where did we go wrong? Surely I thought, after two huge wars that killed so many people in the middle of the century we would LEARN something……I want to go back sometimes to those days in the past and see if it was something I did, or didn’t do, that might have helped. Surely I could have done more. Certainly we could have all done more.
Instead we have become slaves to technology, instead of beneficiaries of it. People use it to spread hatred and discord. People spend hours and days lost in cyber space instead of talking face to face with each other.
Instead of moving forward for the good of all mankind, and in the spirit of love, it appears we have gone backwards. In this past year especially, hatred has become more widespread. The population of our country seems always to be split right down the middle on important social and cultural issues. The holiday season this year has given us a tiny break in which to catch our breath, before we apparently embark on a new national journey….a tact we have never before taken. We are sailing in uncharted waters. Bad or good? Depends on which half of the population you belong to.
I have to have hope that we will learn from what lies ahead. I have to have faith that somehow humanity will turn over a new leaf, and that my children and grandchildren will have a world in which to live.
Yes…the new year is creeping every closer this week. There is still a chance for all of those good things that I have pondered on in the past to happen.
I wonder if there’s a chance they will?
I wonder if we can solve the the number one problem in this world? The problem of people hating other people just because they are different from them. Just because they look different. Just because they think differently.
I used to fantasize as a child about aliens coming to visit Earth, and bringing us the secrets to peace and prosperity. Now I realize that in order for any culture or beings to reach out into the Universe to spread harmony and knowledge, they must first learn how to have it themselves.
If they are anything like us, it doesn’t appear that’s a possibility! We earthlings can barely cooperate long enough to decide what’s for dinner…much less think about reaching out to the stars.
When the ball drops, and it becomes 2017, think about what you can do to make this a better world. Let’s try a little selflessness instead of selfishness. Is it too late, or not??
Writing for Sanity's Sake 