The Potholes of Our Choices

End 2024 with timeless reflections and commence 2025 with a renewed purpose

Photo by 세훈 예 on Pexel

If humans are plucked out of the cosmic system—in the Practical Guide of the Art Relàtions—we would witness the whole creation—the animals, the stars, the moon, the plants, everything—is perfectly the way it is. Life simply can't be justified or judged; it continously keeps even going the way it is without us. If again you put humans back to the creation but take away their ability to judge, you'll find that we're precisely like the rest of the nature. We're not good or bad or right or wrong; we're just the way we're.

Currently, however, we are compelled to constantly justify everything; we worry of finding answers to our own puzzles. In the midst, we make everything bad or good or right or wrong when it's plainly the way it is, period. Humans rapidly accumulate a lot of knowledge faster; we learn all those beliefs, misconceptions, rules, and morals from our families, religion and society. And we create most of our habits, most of our feelings, on that knowledge. We create demons and angels.

Across our screen-flooded living rooms, we've unashamedly uncovered what human being is capable to do to another. And it's not a question of primitive tribes in Amazon. The atrocities we've seen committed so far against our own equals comes from the cultured and well-educated people—lawyers, politicians, doctors and the civilised.

It's not the political or other systems, as many surmise, that create evil. Evil springs deeply from the depths of people themselves. It's the wickedness in human beings that changes these evil systems into devastatingly destructive forces. From crisis to crisis, we can't seem to get over it—we're stuck in a rubble of our own makings. Often, our last-ditch efforts to salvage ourselves are nothing more than a reflection of our backpedalling thoughts. The inescapable consequences of our actions do not leave unscathed.

The heart-wrenching images we watch from a distant in Gaza, Syria, Yemen, to South Sudan—buffeted by every harsh nights and cold winds sweeping across the earth—are the victims of the mercilessly self-righteous. Someone somewhere arrogantly sanctified their actions—with all their unlimited twisted powers—as right and justified with every spare of facts.

Right now, countless families face near starvation and struggles to get food, water, shelter—the very basic necessities routinely overlooked by many. Famished children cry for motherly love they can't seem to get; the blind can see it in their own hearts—the profoundly destructive excuses of humans.

While this is happening, there isn't a problem choosing a particular course of action; it's the consequences of those actions that we won't choose that we must spotlight. No matter the label—right, wrong, evil, good—they have their consequences. And those consequences, not labels are what irrevocably affect the world we've been busy blasting.

To remain conscious of your actions is to deeply recognize yourself in another. The truth is happiness, success, wealth doesn't come from other people's misery. And if it shamefully comes from it, like it does for some, it's a pointless and destructively hollow endeavours. Being someone who looks at the ground and proactively fix potholes in front of you before you stumble in is not everyone's portion but a must-have quality in a world stripped of humanity. For when you do that way of life you not only save yourself but you also save thousands of pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, passengers—literally your good deeds profoundly ripple out to everyone in need.

All our survival is pegged on the survival of each one of us. It's not about you being right and others wrong. It's about the unquestionable appropriateness of what we do. In any given circumstance, when we act, any action we perform, we must be privy to its consequences. Will my actions bring well-being to me and my friends, my neighbours, and everybody around me? How do I lead a purposelly meaningful life? How can I become a genuinely generous human being? As long as your volition is compassionately inclusive, your intentions wholeheartedly include everyone, you don’t need to worry about the rights and wrongs. The appropriateness of your actions will naturally certify themselves.

As we end 2024 and embraced the coming year, your contribution will manifest in small steps but is truly no small thing. And you don't need a powerful position to do the appropriate. You can always give something, even if it's kindness! You can choose not to use technology in your hands to post hate, not throw dirt everywhere, make justice vividly imaginable again, mend what's been torn apart, do wrong to none, sustain-lace your outputs, uphold integrity even in darkness, flash your warmest smile to strangers on the streets.

There is abundantly plenty of room to practice goodness. You won't be judged by what you amass—intellect, technology, assets. You will be judged by the character of how you treat the poor, the condemned, the tortured, the humiliated, the incarcerated. In my own community, the old adage reminds that when an elephant arrives in an area, all the locals will drink water. Be that elephant in your own version and supply that water!