Is there any doubt? America has changed since its founding. It has changed even since the days of our grandparents. Many long to return to the “good ole days” that some might describe as a time “when people worked hard on their farms to produce their food and didn’t expect the government to provide it.” But many others don’t want to return to those days, describing them as a time “when people were beaten for the color of their skin and kept as slaves.” The truth is that America’s future will never look like its past, no matter how much we hope. There may be similarities, but there will be many differences too. That future will never look quite as idealistic as we might hope either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
America will continue to evolve and change, for good or bad. But we can take steps to influence how these changes turn out. Each one of us has some power and influence to contribute something that can turn into a great future. But we need to keep in mind that what we create needs to appeal to almost all people, not just our own special interest group. It can’t appeal mainly to white Christians or mainly to people of color who live in poverty. We need to focus on social changes that support every American, regardless of their background or way of life, their religion, their abilities, or any other characteristic that isn’t truly a threat to others or the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is essential because as long as there is a group that feels that something has been taken away from them that should be theirs, they will fight against the system or people that took it away. I think history can show that to often be the case. This means that we really do need to find ways to accommodate many of the things others need and most strongly want. At the same time, we ourselves can expect to receive what we need and most strongly want. But we all must also accept that we will have to give up something that is less important to us. It will take some creativity to find answers that can do this, but I don’t believe it is impossible, though it’s something we don’t typically figure out on our own. We tend to want everything our way, thinking that if everyone just followed it, they would be as happy as we would be. But knowing we aren’t all cookie cutter people, with all the same tastes and preferences, it should be clear that it doesn’t work that way. We have to accommodate differences in ways that satisfy most everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That may seem like a tall order, especially since we usually accept that “you can’t please everyone.” Despite that, Lightward Bound has as a major goal to build unity among our people. To achieve that goal, it will take some serious paradigm shifts, some new ways of thinking. The plan for the future is that Lightward Bound will work with people and organizations to orchestrate changes in how we think of each other and ourselves. We need to let go of feelings of superiority, thinking that everything must be our way. We will need to adopt the philosophy that what others need and want matters to me enough that I would be willing to give up something that I would normally want to have in order to ensure others have some of the good things too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think a good example of this idea can be demonstrated with the drought that our area (Tooele, Utah) has been experiencing this year. There is some doubt about if we have had enough precipitation for us to have sufficient water to get through the summer. The water takes care of drinking needs, washing and cleaning, and keeping yards green. Yards take up the largest quantity of water. As individuals, we could decide we don’t care about the county’s request for us to use less water for our lawns. We could just use water inside the house and water our lawns just like we have always done. But if enough people did the same, we could conceivably get to the point that many of us wouldn’t have enough water to bathe or even drink. On the other hand, we could consider ourselves as part of a whole community of people, all depending on one another in some way. We could each decide to use less water on our lawns and let them look a little brownish, knowing that it means that everyone will still have water in their homes for bathing, cleaning, drinking, etc. Some level of sacrifice and compromise will always be necessary for a community to provide sufficiently for all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another principle that I believe is essential for taking control of the changes to brighten America’s future, is that we must use proper influence and persuasion to motivate and instill values that lead people to change on their own. When people learn enough to see value in the change and are convinced to care enough to change, it will have a much better long-term impact on people. On the other hand, using fear and force will never be a good approach to accomplish worthwhile human goals. That approach may achieve specific physical or functional goals, but likely at a cost in broken people and lost lives. A positive change requires positive approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are you ready for this change? Help make it happen; start by looking at what you need to improve on to be more sharing and caring, more equal with others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Is there any doubt? America has changed since its founding. It has changed even since the days of our grandparents. Many long to return to the “good ole days” that some might describe as a time “when people worked hard on their farms to produce their food and didn’t expect the government to provide it.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[33,61,117,139,172,173,188,193],"class_list":["post-318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","tag-caring","tag-equality","tag-love","tag-people","tag-social-change","tag-social-justice","tag-tooele","tag-unity"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightwardbound.org\/Main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}