World Peace, Is It Attainable?

Since we can remember everyone has dreamed of a world were peace is the key. Much like 'Pleasantville' the notion is far fetched and possibly impossible at this point. With the world housing billions of people all of different religions, creeds, and morals, trying to find a way to take away the hate that has become such a norm these days seems impossible.

Hate, lets touch on that. Why do we hate? As humans it is a natural response to many situations but has it not gotten out of hand? We hate because someone has more money than we do, we hate because they have better clothes or because they are a better person or just because they seem to be further and/or better off than we are. With all the shared households now we hate because the other parent or step parent is not parenting the way we think they should be. We hate because kids are used as pawns and put in the middle of things they should not be. Here is the clincher, that is our choice; we have the choice to be who we will be to do what we will do and to let bygones be bygones. We hate not because we truly dislike that person, we hate because we hate ourselves for not attaining those things that we have deemed unattainable.By seeing someone else have what we want we instinctively go on the defensive. We hate the other parent for moving on but really we hate ourselves for not being the one to make them happy. There are times hate is warranted, those are not the times I am touching on hear, I am talking about the times when the other person is a good person but we can't stand them for whatever reason.

I want to next touch on our minds; we have amazing minds as humans and each one firing differently giving everyone different motivation, different wants, likes, desires and dreams. By understanding our minds and truly knowing how we operate one can tune in and work on getting to where they want to be in life. The biggest problem I see is laziness or lack of drive. people see the big picture, they want the big picture but they can't seem to put the big picture into fragments that are attainable thus creating the big picture. So instead we envy and make fun trying to make ourselves feel better about the choices we have made, trying to be happy in otherwise unhappy circumstances. For example, a household goes from two incomes working toward building a home with two kids to suddenly having one income and three children. Plans for the new home and such still on the table but much much harder to obtain. Instead of being jealous of others who have the nice big home and lots of money this family keeps the one income, lives within their means and tries alternatives to pull in a few extra bucks a month to keep ends met. Mom still stays home with the children but sells things, does odd work from home jobs and keeps the house together while the dad does side jobs and his regular job to keep ends met. The goal much harder to obtain but broken down into smaller parts to help save for the end goal. They are happy, not because they have money or expensive things, not because they have a big fancy house to showcase, they are happy because they truly love each other and the life they have built however imperfect. This is how it is done, you can't expect things to fall into place unless you work for them and most of all live within your means.

Living within your means, what does that mean? So many people today compete to have lavish homes, belongings and trips all sacrificing things that really matter, your time. Your children will not remember all the stuff you had they will however remember the times you shared. It doesn't matter to them where you live or what you have. Living within your means is living comfortable. not paycheck to paycheck, not wondering where the money will come from for the next meal or bill, it is living simply, humbly and happy. It's taking the time to laugh together, to enjoy each other to save what you can and just be happy with what you have. It is being able to save and take a family vacation, creating memories and living to live. When we are gone what will it matter if we had all those expensive things? We want to leave behind a legacy, we want to be missed. Spending our living time to work is not right, we should work to live.

Decades ago you would go into work, say hello to everyone and ask how thier wife and kids are doing and what not. You would see them around town and things were nice and civil. It is hard to get a community to continually be kind and generous to each other now days. It is harder yet to get cities to cooperate. So what makes world peace even attainable? Our world has become so divided and so spiteful. We have become selfish, we laugh at people getting injured in a bike fall. We all have varying morals and ways of thinking, as humans we cannot all think alike because our minds all fire differently. How can a world so divided and hateful become one, or can it? We want a world of peace but right now it is a world in pieces.

When we think of world peace we think of harmony, walking down the streets with a smile on our faces, no worry of being injured or killed, no thoughts of bombings or terrorist attacks or things alike. We can go out at night and our biggest worry is what to do for the day. This is a fantastic notion and according to the FBI uniform crime reports crime has gone down significantly. The report stops at 2011 however so how have we been doing in the last 5 years? Well if we look at just the United States and the crime records up to 2014, the chart actually shows a decrease in crime overall (Effgen, 2012). Aggravated assault has gone up between 2013 and 2014 but everything else has decreased then why do I fear for my life, my future and have even been the victim of robbery several times. We live in a nice neighborhood but crime has increased in our small town in the last 5 years; so what does that say about the world?

We may seem most peaceful on paper but are we really? Crime can go down but that does not mean we are becoming a more peaceful nation. When you go out on any day how many people just say hello or acknowledge you? How many people just look at you and not eyeball you secretly judging your appearance? peace is not just crime, it is every day actions that people do to one another. When we pass someone regardless of how they look you should say hello. if you are in line at the store you should acknowledge the people around you. it is just good manners.

Manners, something else that has been lost with the times. Please, thank you, could you, would you mind, all examples of phrases I don't hear anymore. Manners are a huge part of being a peaceful nation and that is not the case anymore. We are rude and nasty to each other and if you go to a store and don't find what you are looking for or have an agenda you think that by yelling and throwing a tantrum you can get what you want. This is rude, the employee is there to help you not be your doormat. Where did our sense of humanism go? Everyone judges everyone else, our country thinks certain things of other countries and so on but nobody takes the time to truly get to know anyone. Peace, true peace cannot be obtained until we open our minds and our hearts and be nice to people and not just our own but everyone around the world. This is a very difficult task to do because gone are the days of pen pals and opening our hearts to new people and here are the days of selfish indulgences.

There are so many factors that need to be in place to bring peace to the world. If we look at the chart above England has been doing something right for a long time because their numbers for crime are way down right? Well they may have less crime but how to we gauge humanity and can it be done?

Having a hard time finding concrete evidence to support the concept that peace world wide would be possible I will say that as humans we are all flawed. We do not all share the same ideals, beliefs, morals or overall love for life. This is what makes us unique but also what flaws us. We cannot have just one ruler telling us what is right from wrong because then we are just mindless sheep in a vast sea of life. We cannot force one person to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders because he or she will go mad. With billions of people in the world there is no way that we can all get on the same wavelength. Our minds fire at different intervals, we all have different feelings, Ideals, wants, desires and that is what compels us to do some of the things we do, feel the way we do and handle things the way we do. This is what makes peace unattainable because there will always be those who do not see the way others see and cannot understand why we have to be nice to each other.

Crime can go down because we have police to help keep things at bay but it will never go away. There will always be those driven to do bad things. There will always be those who don't care about humanity. This is why peace globally is not possible, not even locally. Humans are flawed thus everything made by humans are flawed by definition and unless we all join and get on the same page with every ideal there is no hope for full, pure, peace. There will always be a fight to be had, a controversy to solve and that is just the way life is.

This post will bring much controversy I am sure because like I stated above we are all different and think differently about topics. As humans we are entitled to that luxury. We are awesome, smart, versatile and can adapt to most anything. We can create, love, live, think freely and just be, but we can be mean, cruel, dangerous, mindlessness and downright sadistic too. Out of all of the animals and insects that inhabit our world I would say we are the worst only because we can destroy and mame. We kill for pleasure, we hunt for sport and all of these things is what sets us aside from the animal kingdom and what makes us so dangerous not just to the world but to each other. With all of these qualities, even with the good, having a truly peaceful world is not going to be possible. We may want it but it is not in our nature, at least not now.

Effgen, C. (2012). United States crime rates 1960 - 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2016, from http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm