The world shouldn’t be comprised of people in boxes. Minding their own business. It should be full of people raising their voices, using their power and presence, standing up for what’s right. Minding one another’s business.
Mona Hanna-Attisha
It’s time to mind other people’s business. Of course this doesn’t mean gossiping and spreading unwanted advice or molding people into who we think they should be. Quite the opposite. Minding other people’s business means finding them where they are, accepting them for who they are, and helping them just a little become better.
We do live in boxes. Many many, sometimes impenetrable boxes. Call it a box, or call it a mask, there are too few of us who are truly alive and aren’t afraid to go after what they dream about. Everyone one else minds their own business. They live with their demons. They repeat the unwanted story of their life again and again, but the best way out is to forget ourselves and to begin working for someone else’s dream.
I know it seems counter intuitive. It smacks of religion but we are wired to be social and help other people’s dreams come true. The greatest happiness comes to us when we are working something bigger than ourselves. That is how successful teams win championships. They forget their individual efforts and compliment each other so that together they are stronger than each individual part.
In truth, I don’t believe the world will be different tomorrow, than it is today, or they way it was yesterday. Human history and all our social sciences seem to point out that as a human race we are determined to keep reliving our old mistakes and are stubborn to let go of our destructive ways, but not all is lost. It all depends how you define the world. After all to you and I the world came into existence when we were born, and it will cease to exist, as we know it the day we do, and so our definition of the world is very small. Since it is small, it provides each of us an opportunity to do what otherwise seems impossible.
It is possible to change the world, to change our world, and it begins with us. It begins with the awareness that we wear masks, play games, and live in boxes. It begins the courage to do little things that upset that balance. Little acts of discipline that build little habits that turn into magnificently huge habits. Habits that help other people. Acts that change the lives of other people. We have a chance to change the world, our world, our reality, and everyone that we come in contact with.
I realized this about music. Each and every day more and more music is created. It is humanly impossible to listen to everything and assess how good it is. Yes, the Beatles were the greatest musical act of their generation, if not in all of human history, but that doesn’t mean they were the only one, nor that people prefer P. Ditty, or the New Kids on the Block, or Slayer, to Abby Road and Sargent Pepper.
We have so much ability. We live with so much potential, if we could ever just get over ourselves, open up the box that holds us prisoner and lived a little in other peoples spaces. We could learn who they are and what they need. We could lend a hand, and in turn we would be so well served for it.
