To Create a Better World, We Must Think OUTSIDE Ourselves!

"How do we create a better world, both for ourselves and for future generations?"

It's a question people often ask, either out loud, or as an inner dialogue with themselves.

In this day and age, it can seem like a question with very few answers. We look around us and see illness, suffering, death and destruction everywhere and we may think to ourselves "How on EARTH can I do anything to make this better?"

Will this ever get better?

Perhaps the biggest challenge we face is the current trend of selfishness and toxic individualism. So much pain and suffering happens because people fail to think outside themselves, instead focusing only on how they feel in a situation, what they will gain from taking action. The effects of their actions rains down on other people in a rain of "collateral damage."

Creating a better world requires community and a certain degree of collective thinking. That's not to say that we must give up our self-interest, just that we must begin by paying more attention to the plight of others, and a little less to our own plight.

One of Steemit's former humanitarian contributors once used the term "narcissistic altruism" to describe an approach through which we concern ourselves with the well-being of others not entirely as an act of altruistic self-lessness, but because doing so also helps US.

An example he used was that of giving to the local homeless shelter, as a result of which the homeless have a place to go, and thus would be less likely to break into our cars or our garage and steal our tools to sell at a local pawnbroker. It's a less than perfect illustration perhaps... but he used it to show a more idealistic and engaged approach to a problem than using the same money to just build a tall fence around our property to separate ourselves from the world's problems.

But we are not separate from the world's problems, we are part of them.

"Thinking outside ourselves" asks us to redirect our attention from "our" problem with the state of the world to "the" problems with the state of the world, and trusting that when we do good, the outcome will be one that does good for US as well.

Thanks for reading, and Bright Blessings to all!

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You are not alone!
(Graphic is our own)

The White Light Express Mission Statement:

Since October 2001, the mission of the White Light Express has been to offer healing and transformation through focused positive intention, meditation and prayer. Right Thought is the first step toward Right Action and consciousness. We believe that “holding the vibration” is a profound task and our divine destiny.

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