Stop and think before criticizing others

There seems to be a great deal of negativity in the air lately and we all need to take a long breath and think before we speak.  Any time we criticize someone, we throw out negativity.  Some amount of criticism can be useful at certain times and places.  But, generally, criticism is harmful to the person getting criticized and all it does is feed the ego of the person doing the criticizing.

This could be something as simple as criticizing someone's clothing or hair style.  It could be about their age, sex, height, weight, or physical fitness.  It could be about their ideas or traditions or their religious beliefs or political preference.  It could be their race or sexual orientation.  It can be almost anything.  We just seem to love to criticize people.  Often, we think it's not really harmful and we seem to think we have the right to give our opinion about everybody else.  Of course, we have the freedom to give our opinions, but we haven't understood that we need to just keep our mouths shut and think before we speak.  

Social media is changing our national consciousness.  We are coming together in a way that we have never done.  We are literally having a national conversation about very important matters, like racial and economical equity and how we can improve the world.  During this time, we need to figure out how to provide useful feedback and avoid negative criticism of others.  Stop complaining about others.  Stop putting others down.  Stop hating others.  Stop arguing and fighting with others.  Stop being so stubborn and stop thinking you know it all.  Stop feeling superior and stop being selfish.

Our national conversation needs to be positive.  We need to discuss our feelings but we need to think about what we say can affect others.  Negative criticisms lead to arguments and fighting.  Positive thoughts and comments lead to continued discussion and will lead to resolution of problems.  We can work together and improve our world but only if we can give up our egos that are telling us to criticize others and show others that we are better than them.  

What are some examples of how negative criticisms in our social media can harm us all?  What can we do about it?  

Christians should act like Christ

Over the years I have thought that our society was getting better and we were making progress. But the ugly head of racism pops up again and again. The worst part of our human existence is during times that our group consciousness permits and supports slavery and murder of other humans because of our own egoistic and self-centered minds. These human minds can justify enslaving and even killing someone else.  After all, they are superior.  But it's not just racism. It's any kind of ego-centric bigotry. People hate others of different skin color, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or whatever difference we think up.  But the point is what are we doing? We keep going over and over the same issues and we don't seem to get it. And unfortunately our national religious minds seem to be encouraging the ego-centric mindset. That's right. I'm talking about Christianity in America.

I would like to challenge anyone who calls him/her self a Christian to reflect upon what it means to be a Christian. Christianity has a bad past about supporting some pretty crazy things. I won't go over our past but it's the present evangelical Christians in America that concern me the most. They seem to be supporting an extreme right wing white egomaniac.  They have been supporting conservative policies that help keep the wealthy in power and deny human rights to every person.  

A Christian is not just someone who says "I'm saved" and then go to heaven. A Christian is a person who tries to act like Christ. Jesus Christ would never support any kind of superior attitude toward any other person. He would not support any form of racism or bigotry. He would not support feeling superior to gays or lesbians.  Christ would accept and love every single person in the world.  The love of Christ is the love of God.  Jesus very clearly said that he is unconditional love and that we should be like him.  So, therefore, to be a Christian we need to try to have unconditional love for everyone.  That seems simple to me and I got it when I was growing up.  I understood as a young person that Christ was love and that I should live as close to being like Christ that I could.  I got it.  But then I looked around and saw all these so-called Christians who seemed to espouse being a Christian but they just didn't seem to get it.  They seemed to not understood his simple message.  What part of love others as yourself do they not get?  What part of love your enemy is confusing?  Jesus helped everyone.  Jesus loved everyone.  We should do the same.

Love is a basic of human existence.  Our consciousness wants love but our ego is like a child that is growing up and trying to learn to love others and not be such a selfish baby. But we have a long ways to go.  Christ lived 2,000 years ago and gave us a simple message of loving each other but we are apparently pretty slow learners. It's going to take us as a national mind a while longer to get it.  I ask that the evangelicals think about it and try to understand the simple message of Christ.  Are you acting like Christ or are you acting through your ego by calling yourself a Christian in order to feel superior? 

Let's change the world and stop making excuses

There has been a burning question that continues to haunt me.  The question is not a conservative question.  It is not liberal.  It’s a simple question that every person has asked at some point because it comes from the soul.  Why can’t we change the world?  I don’t care what your religion, nationality, ethnicity, politics, or economic status is.  Everyone has wondered why the world is in such a mess and why can’t anybody do something about it.  You might think it’s a useless question, but I still bet you’ve wondered if something might happen and the world would start to get better.

            There’s plenty of evidence that maybe it is a useless question.  There are so many countries in the world that have dictatorial governments, several in chaos and war.  It would take hundreds of billions of dollars.  Countries don’t seem to be able to agree about many things.  We can’t even solve our own poverty problems in the U.S.  It’s just the way the world has always been and it’s never going to change.  OK, so I could go on and on and you could go on and on with reasons why this is either a useless question or one that has no answer, just excuses. 

            But why not just entertain the question for a moment.  We might want to start with “what would we change the world into?”  I would suggest not shooting for utopia right off the bat but why not go so far as to want a world in peace, a world that respects the human rights for every person, and a world in environmental balance.  Human rights would include the right for food, shelter, clothing, medical care, freedom, and other basic human needs in order to live a good life.  Presently, 10 million people die each year from malnutrition and over one billion people are either homeless or live in very substandard shelters.  How can we continue to allow 10 million people to die every year?  Why don’t we demand that world hunger be eliminated?

            My point is simply this.  We can change the world, so why don’t we do it?  There are over six billion people in the world and we can come together to solve all the major world problems – war and violence, human rights, and environmental.  Just because we haven’t done it before is no excuse for not doing it now.  There are plenty of very bright people in the world.  There is plenty of new technology.   There are hundreds of billions of dollars available throughout governments, private institutions, corporations, and private citizens.  We could figure out how to do it and we could finance it.  Conservatives say let private organizations solve social problems and liberals say let government do it.  But why argue about who is going to do it?   Changing the world will require the joint efforts of private organizations, government, and businesses. 

So again I ask, why don’t we change the world?  This is something that would be good for everyone involved.  It’s a win-win situation.  Governments, political groups, private institutions, big business, and private citizens around the world should make world problem-solving THE top priority.  If world citizens began to demand that world leaders solve these world problems, the fact is that they could do it.  There is enough money in the world to finance massive human rights programs that would benefit every nation in the world and every citizen in the world.  We could eliminate world hunger and homelessness.  Countries could be financially pressured into changing their human rights and environmental practices.  Countries would have to stop all violence on its citizens and neighbors.  Countries that participate in the “change the world” project would get enormous benefits in terms of aid with food, medicine, education, and other basic needs.  Countries who participated would also benefit from free world trade, which would open up even more economic benefits.  There would be some countries that would hold out for a while but the enormous benefits in other countries would eventually cause these holdouts to cave in.

            How could we get such a movement going?  How can we get enough people to demand that world leaders change the world?  

Why can't we learn to share?

I don't know about anyone else but the $1200 stimulus check was very helpful in getting through these tough times during the COVID-19 pandemic.  And I think that Congress should continue giving regular monthly payments to everyone like they did.  The US has an enormous amount of money but the problem is that the money is distributed in an extremely unfair way.  Less than one percent of the people in our country own most of the wealth and we have swallowed the line that it would be evil to even talk about redistribution of wealth.  Oh, my god, I said it.  Redistribution of wealth.  What every capitalist hates.  How dare the 99% suggest that the 1% spread their fortunes around to the rest of us suckers who sit around doing nothing and we're even afraid to say redistribution of wealth. 

I like the idea of a guaranteed monthly income proposed by presidential candidate Yang.  Actually that idea has been around for over 20 years and it started with a group of bipartisan Congressmen in the 1990s.  We could provide everyone with at least $1200 every month.  This would mean that we wouldn't pay unemployment, disability, or other supplemental income to people needing welfare.  Most of these people get less than a $1000 a month now, so if they had a guarantee of $1200 or so, they should be able to pay rent and survive pretty well.  Other low income and middle class people could also use this money to pay expenses and buy things they need.  They would be spending money and stimulating businesses by buying their products.  The middle class worker could not complain they his/her earned income was going to people who didn't contribute, because they would be getting the same supplemental monthly income.

The problem is that we don't like to give things away.  We haven't learned to share.  So many people think of getting something for nothing is charity and taking charity is for weak people.  Come on.  Sharing is not being weak.  If we all get together as a nation, we can figure out how to better distribute our enormous wealth.  The national wealth should belong to us all.  We all have been part of the great American experiment haven't we?  When you share, you give what you don't need to others who do need things.  That's not charity.  It's sharing, like we should have learned in kindergarten. 

The reason we don't like to share is that we have been conditioned to be competitive, to fight for what we want, and to do it on your own.  We want to prove how better we are than others because we have more wealth.  Wealth makes us feel superior to others and we feel powerful with tremendous wealth.  At least, that's what I have seen.  I certainly wouldn't know what having wealth is like.  But I would hope I would want to share my wealth.  Why would I need multiple mansions, jet planes, and money that I couldn't possibly spend?  Why does anyone?  I would like to ask billionaires, why do you think you need or deserve billions of dollars and don't you feel extremely guilty for hoarding such a large piece of the pie while millions are literally starving to death?

Our problem is our egos.  Our egos want money and power.  Right now, we have people in power who are very ego-minded and they do not want to share.  They will lie to us or do whatever it takes to keep us thinking that sharing is wrong.  That sharing is Liberal and sharing is Socialism.  They want us to feel guilty if we suggest that they share and redistribute their wealth.  I don't mean to equally redistribute all the money, but just to use taxes and such means to limit how much some people can accumulate so that money can be shared with people of less wealth, which is most of us.  The ego-minded person is self centered and can only love self and a few others.  We need to expand our minds to let our egos go and learn to love others as ourselves.  Seems like someone named Jesus Christ said something like this a couple thousand years ago.  We seem to be slow learners.  Love others and share.  This is simple to understand as a concept but we haven't quite learned how to implement it.

Just think of how we could use the wealth of our nation in better ways that could benefit all of us and not just a few.  What else could we do?

New basics of education: Freedom, love, and joy

Everybody has heard that the three basics of education are the 3 R's, reading, writing, and arithmetic, but are these really what we should call the basics of education?  Sure, you need to read, to write, and to do arithmetic as basic cognitive skills needed to pursue many academic subjects.  But these skills only address a very limited set of skills necessary for people to successfully function throughout their lives.  Life skills require people to be as self-sufficient as possible so people can live a good life.  People need to know more than just basic knowledge of subject matter.  They need to be able to make decisions, solve problems, investigate questions, create new ideas, get along with others, and cope with life situations.  There are many higher-order thinking skills that people need to function as responsible adults in our society.  The 3 R's just provide the minimal skills a child needs to become a successful adult.  But there are so many other skills and abilities people need but are not thought of as important in school.  Humans are conscious beings who need to not only development their cognitive domain skills but they also need to work on their affective domain skills.  In other words, children need to learn to handle and control their emotional and psychological well-being. 

So what I am getting at is that I want to propose that we take another long look at what the basics of our education should be because the 3 R's just don't make it.  To ask what the basics of education should be, I would have to ask what are the basics of life.  The basics of life should become the basics for education.  That only makes sense to me.  We want to help children prepare themselves with all the growth and development needed to meet the basics of their lives, so it seems that the basics of education should align with the basics of life. 

I will jump straight to the point.  I have written extensively about the basics of life, and thus the basics of education, so I will not elaborate here.  I think that the new basics of education should be freedom, love, and joy.  I know it sounds crazy but you ought to give it a chance before laughing your head off.  My background and training has been in the field of Curriculum & Instruction.  I have experience in analyzing the needs of an organization to determine any training or education needed to meet the organization's or system"s needs.  Part of this process is doing an analysis of the target audience for the training.  When we examine the curriculum in our school system, we should use the instructional system design model so the goals written in the educational system's curriculum match up with the goals for our children in their growth and development for their whole lives.  These educational goals make up what gets taught in school and these goals shape who we are as a nation.  Our present curriculum is based on goals that are over a hundred years old and the goals are to train people to work in factories, take orders, respond to the bell, and keep quiet.  We need new goals focused on the basics of life: freedom, love, and joy.  Our entire educational system's curriculum should reflect the major goals of the life we want for our children and for ourselves. 

Any thoughts?

Racism and the ego development

I continue to be amazed that as a nation we are doing the same thing over and over and it gets really tiresome. What is the problem with racism in this country? We were supposed to have done something about it fifty or more years ago. Why are we still debating about it? It should be very clear what it means to say that all men were created equal and by men we meant all people.  It doesn't say you have to be white to be equal to anyone else.  It is not possible to misinterpret the meaning of all people are created equal.  ALL people.  How can anyone be so stupid, not to get it?  The point is that no one is actually that stupid.  People just don't want to believe that everyone is equal.  In America we say we stand for freedom and equality for all but way too many people do not want or believe in equality.  They want freedom for themselves, but they do not want others who think and look different from them to have freedom to do things that might bother them.  Really?  How could that ever work?  You can't expect everyone to let you be like you are while you can criticize and judge others as much as you want.  We are all equal or we are all going to argue and fight over who is the top dog.  So if it's not stupidity, what is it?  I think it's all about the growth and development of the human consciousness from an ego-centric mind to an others-centered mind.  Another way of saying it is we have a serious ego problem in America.  As we grow older, we learn to share with others and we learn to understand and sympathize with others.  At least, that's the hope.  We grow up and stop being so childish and egotistic and we develop a sense of love for the human race and a concern for the quality of life for everyone.  Again, that's what's supposed to happen as we grow and mature as responsible adults.  Many of us have grown up but then so many just seem to stay in an ego mindset and they can't let it go.  They cling to their ego telling them that they are better than others.  It tells them it's OK to criticize and belittle someone who acts or looks strange to them.  The ego is the national enemy.  If I were President, I would declare war of the ego.  It's fine to be proud of yourself or to have confidence.  But you don't need to make others feel less worthy or valuable than you.  We all have to stop our egos from controlling our thinking and making us act like we're stupid.