I believe that one of the biggest threats to the survival of humanity and life on earth in general lies in each individual’s undermining of herself and her capability of good. By avoiding the realization of our own potential impact on the world we escape from all responsibility to right the wrongs that we as humans have done and keep on doing even today. As long as we live in the illusion of being incomplete, insignificant, separate beings we unconsciously fuel the polluting mechanism that we ourselves have created in order to somehow fill the emptiness within us to avoid feeling petty and useless (which ironically leads us to feel even more petty and useless). Because we are taught from the very beginning that we need to acquire certain external skills and possessions in order to be complete, without being told at what point in time or space these possession will actually instigate this completion of the self, we continue in a hopeless never ending hunt for exterior wealth, for excess material properties, fame, popularity, reputation etc. Sadly none of that relates to our original self-worth. When following the traditional western philosophy of life and trying to meet the expectations of our fellow sickened people we too become sick and thus keep on contributing to a sicker world.
Instead we should follow the instinct that is rooted deep inside of our hearts that intrinsically excludes the notion of us being egotistic separate beings and instead implies that we are endless loving unities part of a bigger whole that serves a bigger purpose than the one to fulfill our shallow wants and desires.
This concept isn’t very new but I think that there is a topical opportunity in our present time for a new understanding of it since we are now more than ever able to be the witnesses of our own destruction. It is now that the matter is pressing and it is now that we know what a hazard we are to our own existence. If that is not enough for us to awaken and realize our power to affect the world in an equally positive way as we have been affecting it in a negative way for the past decades, then maybe we deserve the consequences that we are and will be facing. But hopefully, as enough people step up to their inner potential rather than listening to their damaging egotistic needs, we will become a cooperating mass movement going against the already instituted polluting mechanism that is still in rolling, and eventually we’ll reverse it. For this to happen we can no longer suppose that we as individuals are not enough, that we are just one unimportant person without any real power to change anything. We need to rid ourselves from that conviction promptly for the sake of all of us and instead recognize the immensity of our potential to save the planet one by one, all together.
If you think you are insignificant, try sleeping with a mosquito in your room.