Sunday Story...Whose Problem is it Anyway?

Sunday Story…Whose problem is it anyway?

There was a time when I could live independently in the world. I could live off the land and do more than just survive. I am pretty sure that is no longer the case in North America, Europe and some parts of Asia. Maybe in Africa it might be possible. I am not sure. We have changed our world in a way that we are interconnected and inter-related to everyone in the world.

I had a conversation recently with someone bemoaning the lack of “self reliance” in people today. That people just can’t take care of themselves. They expect the world to feed them, clothe, them, take care of them. And it is not the world’s job to do that. The world was not created for your private and personal enjoyment. And although I agree with this premise on the surface it really is not true is it?

I cannot raise cows in my back yard for beef. I might get away with some chickens. I can have a garden and gather produce 3 or 4 months out of the year. So in terms of self reliance I need some help with food procurement. But I am responsible for my own food.

I cannot cure a hide for my shoes; I don’t have the knowledge or the time. I can’t plant cotton to weave cloth for my own clothes. I can’t make a mattress. I need a community to help with those things. But I am responsible for getting the money to pay for them.

Self reliance died a lot of years ago. And although it is still possible to get off the grid, drop out, tune in and be your own person, it is definitely not easy. The days of going out in the woods and living for years on your own are over, at least for most of us in the modern, urban, civilized world. But personal responsibility is not dead.

There is a lot of talk about hunter-gatherer diets. Paleo or Primal diets. Eat like a cave man, provided the cave man had a Whole Foods nearby. We give lip service to living simply and sustainably yet visit Starbucks and Mega-grocery weekly (or daily). We are responsible for how the world looks. If you didn’t go to Starbucks, or Wal-Mart, and I didn’t go, and our friends didn’t go then those places would disappear. They are not disappearing. Our landscape looks the way it looks because we like it that way. We are responsible.

So…how much responsibility should I take on for your life? For your food, shelter, well being? Granted I may be responsible for my own life. But am I responsible for yours? What if you don’t want to work anymore and have no money? Am I responsible to support you? Am I going to accept responsibility if you die?

Only you get to answer those questions.

Does a child dying of hunger affect me? Am I responsible?

Remember when you were told to clean your plate because of the starving children in ______ (fill in the country of your choice). I never got that when I was young…how cleaning my plate affect those kids over there. And why don’t we just pack up these peas and send them over there since I really don’t want to eat them? Children in (name a country) won’t get more or less food based on my consumption.

Or will they? How is my consumption of food, goods, and services tied to people ½ ways across the world? Have you bothered to look at this? Do you really care?

We throw away tons of food every day in this country. What if we responsibly only took what we really needed? Not what we wanted, or desired or, lusted for. Would there be more for someone else? Would the price change so someone else might be able to afford it? Why does a pair of Nikes cost a month of salary in Kenya and only a few hours of work in this country? How it that my responsibility? And what can I do to change it?

That child in Kenya won’t get an education for lack of shoes. Because he lacks education and knowledge he becomes helpless to improve his lot in life. Because his life appears hopeless he may become a refugee, or a criminal, or a beggar on the streets. And when his life becomes more and more hopeless and insignificant all the possibilities he was put upon this earth to complete go unfinished and unrealized. All because he didn’t have shoes.

We could say the same thing about food or clean water. How many great minds have we lost through this terrible attrition? How many ideas that could have affected each one of us never came to fruition? How many Einsteins, Edisons, Gandhis, or Jeffersons have been lost to hunger, lack of education or pure hopelessness?

That is how it affects me. That is why it is my responsibility to help, to connect, to live in a way that may change the world. And in fact the way I live does change the world. Self reliance is a lie. No one can be alone any more. No man is an island unto himself. We are all connected. Our lives are interwoven with each other. We need to give each other a hand up not a hand out.

Do something kind today. Have gratitude for all the things you have. And try to figure out how to share your gifts, skill and talents (not just your money) with the rest of the world. We all need you. We all need each other to be the highest and best we were meant to be.

Namaste
John
“Teaching Focus, Inspiring Transformation”
www.martialartsnevada.com

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