I've been contemplating, the past few weeks, what the driving force was behind the state our world is currently in. War, a deteriorating planet, hate, jealousy, etc. At the rate we are going, the rate at which we are killing our own and polluting our Mother Earth through our excessive consumptive ways, we are headed towards self-destruction, in other words, extinction of the human race.
As a fundraiser, I make on average 60-100 calls an hour asking for past donors to jump back on board or existing donors to upgrade their donations. You seldom receive a call with a very passionnate person on the other end and their passion about certain topics have a way of seeping into your soul and allow you to see through a different lens. Yesterday, I spoke to a 58 year old man who owns his own solar energy company. He had graduated from Environmental Science 30 years ago and according to him, not much had changed since he graduated. He was so motivated to make a change in the world so he opened his own solar powered equipment company and had since, installed over 4,000 panels. Incredible, to say the least.
Yet he was ranting on about how he had lost faith in humanity. How, 30 years later, people still had the same habits and drove Hummers and drank from plastic bottles. And then he told me, "Do you know how much plastic ends up in the oceans?". And at that moment, I knew exactly what he was talking about. During my trip to Senegal last summer, we had gone on vacation to a beach on an island (whose name I've already forgotten), and being me, I isolated myself on the other side of the island (the one that wasn't the beach). I mounted myself on a rock and enjoyed the view and the crashing waves against my skin. The one observation that enraged me was the amount of plastic bottles that were washing about on the shore. Thousands, if not millions. It was a sea of pastic bottles. The beauty of the ocean against the sky was taken away by the plastic bottles.
Disgusting.
I was so enfuriated that I got up and picked up about a dozen water bottles and walked over to throw them out in the trash can. I came back and did the same. After about five or six trips, I was exhausted and it seemed as if I hadn't removed a single bottle. Frustrated and tired under the scorching sun, I went back to my rock and sat there deep in thought. Pondering why people thought it was alright to pollute. Perhaps they hadn't realized the gravity of the consequences that were surely to ensure. Or perhaps they knew and didn't care. Either way, I was raging and I had to calm down. A number of thoughts ran through my mind. How to make this stop, how to change the way human beings are treating the planet. And then I realized that whether you are in Canada or in Senegal, people are people and they pollute just the same. I enjoyed the view from the rock and put my hand in the water. I pulled out some sand only to discover that it had not been sand. There were pulverized seashells, it looked like shimmering diamonds. Tiny fragments of different patterns and colors, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. I wanted to take some home with me. So I grabbed some bottles floating around, filled them up with sparkly sand and took them home with me. What beauty.
I knew exactly what the man was talking about because I had lived it. And then he said, "I wouldn't be surprised if mankind became extinct in the next 50 years because that's inevitable! You know what, we deserve it! We are so greedy and selfish! We don't get the wake up calls with the yearly disasters. Surely if a portion of the Earth became extinct, that would suffice! But if not, we should all go bloody extinct!". And I at first, I was a bit taken aback but then as the words started to sink in, I realized he was right. He was absolutely right. And he shared the same raging passion for the Environment as I and it was a breath of fresh air to see that passion shared by another fellow citizen of the world.
I woke up this morning, feeling weird after some crazy dreams. I looked to my left and saw The Power at the top of my book stack and thoughtlessly, I grabbed it and started reading. I got to p.8 where the answer was awaiting me,
" The power to have all the positive and good things in life is love!
There are not one hundred different positive forces in life; there is only one. Nature's great powers like gravity and electromagnetism are invisible to our senses, but their power is indisputable.Likewise, the force of love is invisible to us, but its power is in fact far greater than any of nature's powers. The evidence of its power can be seen everywhere in the world: without love, there is no life.
Take a moment to think about it: What would the world be without love? FIrst of all, you wouldn't even exist; without love you couldn't have been born. None of your family and friends would have been born either. In fact, there wouldn't be a single human being on the planet/ If the force of love ceased today, the entire human race would decrease and eventually die out." (Rhonda Byrne, 6-8)
And there it is. The driving force behind our own self-destruction, is a lack of love. Love for our dear planet. Love for our fellow people across man-made borders. Love for our own. Love for the people around us. And more importantly, love for ourselves.
Love.
Love is the answer to ending war. Love is the answer to treat our Mother Earth with respect. Love heals. Love conquers.
Love is the answer.
As a fundraiser, I make on average 60-100 calls an hour asking for past donors to jump back on board or existing donors to upgrade their donations. You seldom receive a call with a very passionnate person on the other end and their passion about certain topics have a way of seeping into your soul and allow you to see through a different lens. Yesterday, I spoke to a 58 year old man who owns his own solar energy company. He had graduated from Environmental Science 30 years ago and according to him, not much had changed since he graduated. He was so motivated to make a change in the world so he opened his own solar powered equipment company and had since, installed over 4,000 panels. Incredible, to say the least.
Yet he was ranting on about how he had lost faith in humanity. How, 30 years later, people still had the same habits and drove Hummers and drank from plastic bottles. And then he told me, "Do you know how much plastic ends up in the oceans?". And at that moment, I knew exactly what he was talking about. During my trip to Senegal last summer, we had gone on vacation to a beach on an island (whose name I've already forgotten), and being me, I isolated myself on the other side of the island (the one that wasn't the beach). I mounted myself on a rock and enjoyed the view and the crashing waves against my skin. The one observation that enraged me was the amount of plastic bottles that were washing about on the shore. Thousands, if not millions. It was a sea of pastic bottles. The beauty of the ocean against the sky was taken away by the plastic bottles.
Disgusting.
I was so enfuriated that I got up and picked up about a dozen water bottles and walked over to throw them out in the trash can. I came back and did the same. After about five or six trips, I was exhausted and it seemed as if I hadn't removed a single bottle. Frustrated and tired under the scorching sun, I went back to my rock and sat there deep in thought. Pondering why people thought it was alright to pollute. Perhaps they hadn't realized the gravity of the consequences that were surely to ensure. Or perhaps they knew and didn't care. Either way, I was raging and I had to calm down. A number of thoughts ran through my mind. How to make this stop, how to change the way human beings are treating the planet. And then I realized that whether you are in Canada or in Senegal, people are people and they pollute just the same. I enjoyed the view from the rock and put my hand in the water. I pulled out some sand only to discover that it had not been sand. There were pulverized seashells, it looked like shimmering diamonds. Tiny fragments of different patterns and colors, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. I wanted to take some home with me. So I grabbed some bottles floating around, filled them up with sparkly sand and took them home with me. What beauty.
I knew exactly what the man was talking about because I had lived it. And then he said, "I wouldn't be surprised if mankind became extinct in the next 50 years because that's inevitable! You know what, we deserve it! We are so greedy and selfish! We don't get the wake up calls with the yearly disasters. Surely if a portion of the Earth became extinct, that would suffice! But if not, we should all go bloody extinct!". And I at first, I was a bit taken aback but then as the words started to sink in, I realized he was right. He was absolutely right. And he shared the same raging passion for the Environment as I and it was a breath of fresh air to see that passion shared by another fellow citizen of the world.
I woke up this morning, feeling weird after some crazy dreams. I looked to my left and saw The Power at the top of my book stack and thoughtlessly, I grabbed it and started reading. I got to p.8 where the answer was awaiting me,
" The power to have all the positive and good things in life is love!
There are not one hundred different positive forces in life; there is only one. Nature's great powers like gravity and electromagnetism are invisible to our senses, but their power is indisputable.Likewise, the force of love is invisible to us, but its power is in fact far greater than any of nature's powers. The evidence of its power can be seen everywhere in the world: without love, there is no life.
Take a moment to think about it: What would the world be without love? FIrst of all, you wouldn't even exist; without love you couldn't have been born. None of your family and friends would have been born either. In fact, there wouldn't be a single human being on the planet/ If the force of love ceased today, the entire human race would decrease and eventually die out." (Rhonda Byrne, 6-8)
And there it is. The driving force behind our own self-destruction, is a lack of love. Love for our dear planet. Love for our fellow people across man-made borders. Love for our own. Love for the people around us. And more importantly, love for ourselves.
Love.
Love is the answer to ending war. Love is the answer to treat our Mother Earth with respect. Love heals. Love conquers.
Love is the answer.
Source: Inside the Divine Pattern Group on Facebook