Can we Change?

Yesterday’s blog was a challenge to change. Friends told me that most people will change only reluctantly, and only if they need to. Not changing would deliver consequences so inconvenient and uncomfortable, they succumb to change for survival’s sake.  Example: not paying the mortgage ends up in foreclosure and homelessness.


Another example is not paying the auto loan will eventually lead to repossession of the car. Not a happy thought.


So, the individual changes enough to maintain the home and/or car.


Once sick or recovering from a dread disease, we learn that lifestyle choices created the health crisis in the first place. Changing lifestyle routines will lead to healthier results. So, we change. Maybe not enough, but we take on new habits with the hope that better results will accrue.


One friend told me in no uncertain terms that integration of American society with minorities will happen only when interracial marriage is widespread. That is already happening, but the numbers do not yet yield major success in terms of integration.


Maintaining purity of blood lines, however, is pure racism. Think about that; then claim you are not racist if this is your particular belief.


I do not mean to be radical about this. However, healthy integration takes time, perhaps 3 or 4 generations are needed. I suspect one generation is not enough, but at least it is a start.


Meanwhile, religious zeal among many denominations and sects create hate that has demanded genocide in several global sites. World War II and the Jewish Holocaust is but one seminal example. Think of the Muslim purges in Eastern Europe, Malaysia and Asia. We know it goes on. We knew it happened before. It will continue to happen unless and until people learn to get along with one another in peace.


It is easy to find disagreement. It is easy to feel upset and insulted. It is commonplace to build resentments. Then we merely need to sit back and watch the disaster unfold of another holocaust.


What is more difficult is to learn are ways of getting along with people different from ourselves. That takes discipline and resolve. Recall our current difficulties getting along with our own family members and close friends. Those relations are often stormy and scary.


If humankind is to be successful long into the future, we must learn ways of living in peace with one another. It begins with learning, accepting and adapting to diversity among us.

In small steps we begin.


August 13, 2019