IF I RULED THE WORLD # 19

Dear Friends: 

Since we are fast approaching the end of 2017 I would like to leave this year behind with a few observations on "just what the hell is going on here!" (Thanks Donald!)

Over the past 12 months we have looked at various situations and circumstances that might make this world a little easier to live in, but they have all been of a material and physical nature, while I wish to address something more along the spiritual side of our lives today.

What I'm talking about is the need for some sort of balance in our relationships that does away with the "adversarial" position that most of us assume when dealing with other people and situations.

Whether it's in politics, legal matters, personal relationships or spiritual matters we all assume an "us vs. them" mentality that centres around family or tribal circles and is mostly "exclusionary" in nature.

What we should strive for to make this world a better place is practising "inclusionary" relationships that display a concensus among people rather than promote strife and discord. (It is a natural human attitude to be opinionated and selfish, but in the long run this can turn out to be self-defeating as well.)

As many of you will know by now I'm not a very religious person, and my beliefs hover somewhere between agnostic and athiest, but just the same some words spoken by Jesus those many years ago still have relevance today:  (From my book: An Exploration of Religion and the Meaning of Life!")

We can look at Jesus’ thoughts and actions - strip them down to their basics, and we find that they correspond very closely to his concept of: “Love One Another.”

 No more - no less!

These are ideals that he not only taught, but apparently tried to live as well.

Life has been described as “bitter-sweet” and it is not up to us to question why or how, but rather, just to do the best we can.  

This is how we, as a people, will develop and evolve. We cannot control how life treats us, but we can control how we react to life.

No matter what is thrown our way, we should face our destiny with a bit of class and a state of grace!

That is what will show us we are on the right path in our journey!

Allan W Janssen