See Double You

I recently came to the realization that we are all just dumb animals.  Go to any public place such as a grocery store, shopping mall, or even just downtown, and you’ll see.   This link , not real different from this link , proves it.

Now granted, that’s a harsh way to open the gates on my annual pre-holiday commentary, but if you still maintain the ability of self-thought, and honestly take the time out to watch people around you, you should come to the same realization.  I spent several hours of my life this past week watching Wall-E with my children, and my wife and I both decided it certainly was more of an adult than children’s movie.  Though it was a computer-generated cartoon, it was essentially a movie with a substantial amount of meaning regarding how we members of Western society are headed in terms of laziness, excess, and overindulgance.  From the endless hits to the groin and clumsy stupidity that floods America’s Funniest Home Videos, to the fact that we are actually convinced to buy a fast-food hamburger because it now contains “real beef,” we heralds of a modern society of convenience have somehow convinced ourselves to blindly pride ourselves in our gluttonous ignorance.

Americans have just made one of the most important decisions in modern history by voting in a President running on the platform of change, but what most cease to realize is that it is now not our jobs to sit idle and wait for that President to create that change, we instead have to be inspired to change ourselves and the world around us.  It is this ignorant attitude created partly by the retail land of convenience that has confirmed that it is ok for us to think “its not my problem, let the other guy worry about it.”  We think that as long as our televisions are high-def, as long as Starbucks doesn’t run out of coffee, and as long as Kohls will be open at 4am on the day after Thanksgiving, who could care less about anything else.

Once again ladies and gentlemen, I emplore you.  Take one minute, take two minutes, take as long as is convenient (please, I don’t want to interrupt your television routine or current text message conversation), and consider how you live your life.  Consider what is truly right for this planet.  Consider what is right for your children, or your neighbor’s children.  Consider what is right for your town, your state, for Africa.  How are you living your life today, and how is it impacting those things that you think are right?  Are you eating right?  Are you buying what you should and from whom you should?  Are you buying too much that you’ll just throw away?  Are you giving when you can give?  Are you treating others the way you would like to be treated?  How many of those things you consider can you honestly say to yourself that you’re doing the right way.  This is the change you have to make.  No one will make it for you, and no one is going to force you.  You have to realize.

I recently learned that the first time someone in China actually inscribed the name of our country, he accidentally wrote it as “The United People of America” as opposed to “The United States of America.”  I think that was a pretty good mistake to make.

This holiday, make some change, see the difference.  The reward, a gift in itself, is priceless.