Building Blocks For a Stronger Nation
Values
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| If you think you don't need them then suit yourself, but be careful because you may not be as smart as you "think" you are. When you look at our culture, where do you see, if anywhere, these types of values being represented and upheld? I know. It's messed up. The answer to this question may be why you think you don't need to live according to real values. False values, on the other hand, are every where like money, ego, brand names, superficial appearance, cleverness and fame, to name a few. Stay with me. Here's your next question. If you were given the choice between a million dollars or the secret to happiness, which would you choose? Don't bother answering because you were already given this choice a long time ago. You just didn't realize it at the time. How could you? You were only a child. Children already have an abundance of happiness. Why would they need to know the secret to it, but the situation changed somewhere along the way and you didn't even realize it. Although, you may have felt it deep down inside when it happened, but you didn't stop to investigate and now you're somewhere else on the path of your life. Do you still have an abundance? Are you as happy and carefree as you were when you were a child? What happened? At some point in human history, the status quo and the powers-that-be along with the help of the media established the notion that values are a matter of personal opinion and preference rather than the reflection of a universal moral code. I don't know when this occured, but it was long before you and I were born although we can still observe evidence of this newer conflicting approach towards values especially in older people who remember when values were closer to the remnants of a long standing greater consensus in basic human nature and decency. Even though it would be easy to dismiss these people as old fashioned or out of touch with the times because generational biases are probably something that we're all guilty of especially when we're part of the younger hipper crowd, aside from this natural dynamic between young and old, let's make one thing clear. Values are not a matter of opinion. They are not subjective or self-serving. They are timeless and universal. The word "value" itself embodies its purpose which is to denote something that is good for all of us. That's what a value is, something that is, always has been and always will be valuable because it serves our greater good. Oh, you didn't know we had a greater good? We'll get to that, too. Don't be confused with the economic use of the word "value" which can be easily manipulated by those in charge of that rigged game. Real value is above this. The fact that actual values have been replaced by artificial commodities in our society by the powers-that-be is why our society is having so many problems. But, let's get back to your happiness. The problems of society will begin to take care of themselves once we start acting like happy humans, again, instead of programmed emotionless robots. This is not a discussion on artificial intelligence, but let me ask you another question. Is happiness a thought or a feeling? Do you think happy or feel happy? Next question. Which faculty do you rely on the most in this world we're all living in, your mind or your heart? Again you don't have to answer because you weren't given a choice. You have to rely on your mind more because you're living in a world created by the human mind. Cars, phones, computers, machinery, economics all require you to think, think, think, but wait. What's happiness, again, a thought or a feeling? Hmmm. Still want the million? Let's keep going. We let children play video games where the object of the game more often than not is to kill your opponent, half the movies on netflix have the word "murder" or "kill" in the title, we're constantly inundated by the news media every day with stories about death, deceit, violence and war and practically every film playing in theaters right now across the country are about some type of problem with lots of stuff getting blown up in the background. In fact, without the characters in a movie making one mistake after another, there would be no drama and therefore no movie. Just remember one thing. All of this was created by the mind, chosen by certain minds and then bombarded your mind with it. Is all of this helping us become happier? Whatever we expose our minds to is what we're training ourselves to think about. Practice is the act of repetition, often habitually, to teach a person how to do something, regardless if it's good or bad. Whether we're doing it deliberately or not, whatever we do over and over is what we're training ourselves to be. Who's in charge of your life, your mind or your heart? You've got one life to live. Is this how you want to spend it? Are you a computer, a piece of technology, or a living, breathing, feeling creature? The first television was invented in the 1920's and didn't arrive in most households until the 1950's, but even then most people weren't very worried about the effect this technology would have on our daily lives. It didn't occupy that much of our time. A little suspension of disbelief once in a while allowed people to take a break from reality. Now, how much time are we spending taking a break from reality? It's almost impossible for the average American to escape this virtual reality created by the mind in order to experience actual reality. The simplest way to put it is if you want to be happy you have to learn to escape not reality, but your mind or more specifically someone else's mind who's trying to control yours. Real values because of their core universality brings us back to reality, back to the present moment. When an artificial reality becomes more appealing, entertaining or tempting than your actual reality, you are too far from your own source of happiness. Values will bring you back. Each one of them has a social component to it, a human component, but in order to connect with this you have to see the value in being yourself, first. You are the source of your happiness. You can't buy it, consume it or steal it. It's already within you. You've just been caught off from it by the wrong type of thinking. Your mind is an amazing tool, but if you can't control it, it can be a very destructive one. What's more important than your thoughts? You are. Are you a thought with a body attached to it or are you a body with an endless amount of thoughts running through it? Your thoughts cannot live without you, but you can live without them especially a lot of the unhealthy and negative ones. Think of yourself as the Earth in all its beauty and wonder and the human-made world that we've created on top of it as your thoughts. Some of what we have created is very good and some of it isn't. How do we improve the parts that aren't? I'll give you one guess. With values. The reason they aren't good for us or the planet is because they lack them. However, if you, I or we don't believe and have faith in real values then we won't see that our unhealthy thinking is what's causing the problem. We'll just keep trying to think our way out of it, but our thinking is what got us here. What's the answer? Go around whining about the lack of values in the world? That doesn't sound too fun. For those who already believe in them, the answer's easy. Represent! Be living proof that they work. The evidence is in your life, how you treat others, the planet and the quality of your happiness. If you don't believe or know how to implement real values back into your life, follow us. We'll show you the way.
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