6. Is the world a bad place?
Is the world really as bad as everyone says?
If you watch the news you might believe that: 8 killed in an attack, 35 died in a war, 10 killed in a killing spree. Endless discussions focus on how bad everything is. Millions of television programs, radio stations, newspapers and websites around the world report ceaselessly about this, then scapegoats are sought, found and condemned. Endless chatter is lost on what people don’t want and how everything will become even worse! Nationwide debates are carried out about what is right and wrong.
But are you aware that there are over 7 billion people in the world? If you assume there is a life-expectancy of 70, that means that on average 100 million people die per year! That means 2702222kkjdkfjdkfajldskfj270,000 people every day.
Have you ever thought about that? It’s something completely normal and belongs to the natural course of events.
But then a plane crashes, and let’s say 150 people die. The whole world is then in an uproar! Even though worldwide 270 thousand people die every day, these 150 people are now bizarrely the object of a great deal of focus. Around the world there are thousands of radio stations, thousands of TV programs, thousands of newspapers and thousands of websites. Every radio station broadcasts this news once an hour for about two or three days, then again one or two weeks later when the black box is located or the real reason for the crash discovered. So the tragedy is reported over a million times.
This news goes around the world a million times. That means that it is sent, printed, discussed and analyzed in talk shows. In addition, fear and panic is stoked, guilty parties sought, security lapses revealed, scapegoats sought and condemned.
This is an unimaginable wave of attention. In addition, unrest in an African country, three deaths on the Israeli border, a demonstration in Russia. Regional stations and newspapers also report on a robbery, a car that was set on fire, three traffic accidents, the divorce of a local politician, a b-list actor being admitted into a drug clinic, a broken shop window and all sorts of other miserable gossip about the private lives of minor celebrities, which is nobody’s business anyway.
And almost everyone is already convinced that the world is coming to an end. Nobody talks about the courage of a little boy who saved a cat from drowning, no one talks about a student who is studying hard at home because he has a vision of becoming a great scientist. No one talks about the old man who for the love of his body jogs through the local park; no one talks about the young woman who swears eternal love to her first boyfriend; no one talks about the young man who listens to his pregnant girlfriend’s belly and feels irrepressible joy at the imminent birth of his child; no one talks about the student from Indonesia who has a job as a cleaning lady because she doesn't want to live off the state.
It is this unrelenting attention to the negative that makes many people believe the world as a whole is becoming ever worse!
It's easy enough to explain why everyone believes that life is getting increasingly worse and in the past everything was better.
One obvious reason for this is that many people believe life was better in the past, so the opposite, that today everything is worse, must also be true. But think about it! First, those are blissful childhood memories of a “perfect world” when most have no responsibilities: children don't have existential worries; parents keep their children in blissful ignorance. Most children feel protected and cared for and don't worry about the future. They are carefree. Even if the parents are poor, they will play on street corners without a care.
Secondly, you know that if you look back at the past only good times remain in your memory; this is God's gift to us. Even if there were difficult times, most only talk about the good times.
This remains with us and the past difficulties pale in comparison. So, if you only have good memories of the past you are tempted to believe that at that time everything was good. And you will focus most of all on what is undesirable in the present. These days the media almost exclusively broadcasts the undesirable things in the world in real time, in high definition to “every corner” of the earth. But it only does so because of the existing demand they are filling. And so the reason for the idea of a bad world has been clarified. Strictly speaking the world is as good or bad as the sum total of the thoughts of its inhabitants.
I believe the world is becoming ever better!
Who would choose to change places with those who lived in the dark times of the Middle Ages? Or during the era of feudalism? In the times when disease wiped out large numbers of people, when war ravaged whole continents, people worked 60 hours a week for next to nothing and every third infant died in its cradle? I think no one would truly prefer that.
Death is just a natural part of life!
Never in the history of mankind has a single person managed not to die. Even Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, Elvis Presley and Napoleon Bonaparte didn’t manage to elude death! Dying is the most natural thing in the world. Of course, it's not pleasant if someone's life is taken due to violence, but the more attention you pay to this, the more violent deaths there will be. Paying attention to something strengthens it!
Now it is, of course, up to every person individually where they want to focus their attention. How is it helpful to hear everyone else’s opinion about the crash? Who benefits from doing that? Will the victims be revitalized as a result? Do you become happier by viewing negativity? Will someone else be happier? Anyone in the world? On the contrary, you duplicate and spread negativity, and set negative thoughts into your subconscious, that's all.
I like to use this metaphor:
The world is a giant garden and you're standing in the midst of it with your recliner and can decide to place it where you want.
1. Over there is a stone garden with enticing smells, next to the flowerbed, sun, butterflies, a bubbling fountain, and birds singing – simply heavenly!
But you can just as well go elsewhere:
2. Over in the corner is a dunghill with insects and right next to that a cesspool: it smells horrible, like manure and rot, bugs are buzzing around you; it's really awful!
It's completely up to you where you want to focus your attention: you can keep watching the news with the horror stories of violence and decadence and join in the chorus with your colleagues or neighbors and sing about how terrible everything is and what awful things others have been doing yet again, and, of course, not to forget the refrain of how everything is going to get even worse!
But you could just as well focus your attention on things that you like, enjoy and make you happy.
It’s all up to you!
Of course, the opposite is also true: The worse you feel, the more occurrences you will experience that will make you feel even worse.