In life we will be faced with difficult decisions, difficult conversations and just difficulties. No body told you that growing up? Perhaps someone did but we didn't listen nor could we see the world for what it really is through our rose colored googles.
Growing up, my Mama raised me with a set of morals. At my core she wanted to ensure I was a good human mean who gave back to society. To be honest a lot of those giving traits were innate. I was and have been guilty of being a people pleaser. But here is the thing. With age comes a whole lot of wisdom and for me some of that wisdom has come as a shock and with a little bit of a price. What does that mean?
For a long time, I believed and thought that everyone was raised with the same set of values, and morales as I. If you saw someone in need you would take the shirt of your back and the shoes off your feet to help them. And you wouldn't have to film it with your smart phone to show that it happened. It was just between you God and the person with some new kicks. All jokes aside it seems that life has changed so drastically. I also believed that if you see something you say something. That my beliefs which were and are Christ Centered, were the beliefs to have. That is no longer the case. You see countless videos of innocent bystanders being attacked by total strangers and no one helps. You see people witness bullying in the playground, online, in the school, at work and all throughout society and people idly stand by.
I have a neighbor whom I adore. The school year before last, she witness the action of another neighbors kid against her child. Now this child played with her child, she had baby sat that child, for intent and purpose, they liked one and another and had spent a significant time together. Rather than say to that child, hey, I will talk to you Mom and she will be displeased with your action, she told the teacher and principle and that child was reprimanded. Her is the thing, we no longer care. We only care about our own experience and what affects us. This child had a bad situation. His Dad was recently removed from his life. He was biracial with two Caucasian siblings and was constantly reminded that he could not behave or do the same things his siblings would for fear of what the repercussions would be for is life. Now I don't agree with this Mom's approach but I get her fear. And i got the root of this child's behavioral problems, it was a heavy cross to bear. But has happened to us, where we know each other but don't really know each other. There are glimmers of hope where people behave and do the humane thing but for most of society we have moved away from a common moral code allow our children to believe the world and everyone's world should revolve around them. Society is becoming more self absorbed and selfish than ever before. How do we change it. I have written about the kindness project before. We have to teach our kids, ourselves, our neighbors and in some cases our friends about kindness and empathy.
We need to rebuild societal trust with one another. We need to have common grounds and a set rule of engagement that benefit and thrust society forward. I know this is a bleak outlook and very skewed view because there are instance of this everywhere you look and if you look for the bad you will only see the bad. Having said that as a society we have to hold ourselves to a moral standard that benefits the collective as well as self for all of us to progress...
