There are billions of people who are not financially well off in this world, and there are also millions of people who are financially rich and belong to a strong monetary background. What we need to do is stop ourselves for a moment to think about what makes a person rich or poor. Is money enough to make a person qualify as being rich? Does a person even have a say in them being rich or poor? When I look around me, I see a person who earns let's say $5 an hour but works up to his potential, and there is also a person on the other hand who earns $2000 an hour by just making a phone call or two. I have often seen people resent the rich because they think it is unfair for them to have so much money, but what do we know about his or her struggles that they had to make to be able to get this far in life. How far are they actually?
When I talk about life, I consider it in every perspective, including the one divine source that we all know as "the fate." Many people complain that there is nothing right in their lives because they do not have enough money in their bank accounts and that luck always favors the rich. We need to stop for once and think it through. Fate would never favor fortune because nature does not work on worldly standards. If that were the case, nobody would ever have been given anything if they did not have money. Being physically healthy is being fortunate, being with family is being fortunate, being loved is also being fortunate, being happy in life, and having peace of mind is being fortunate as well, and all these things can never be bought no matter how much money we put in.
But the fate of Lebanon’s elites after the tragedy may not be as bad as the fate of an everyday person in Lebanon, as the blast only exacerbated their longstanding problems. The nation’s leaders mismanaged the economy for decades, namely with a Ponzi-like scheme whisking away the hard-earned money of Lebanese people from banks to keep the government afloat, pay off public debts, and line the pockets of those in charge. The troubled policy screeched to a halt after the country's banks ran out of money last year — meaning Lebanese workers lost savings which they had stored in their accounts. That worsened an already bad situation: the unemployment rate hovers around 25 percent. About a third of the country lives below the poverty line. The lack of funds has pushed millions into poverty, forcing some to eat at best every other day. That has made the currency as worse as the lira. Lebanon's currency has collapsed, driving the prices of necessary items like food upward. That is why many experts fear that Lebanon may soon see refugees flock out of the country, though they have few places to go in the war-torn region.
So, it has been established that the fate of these “elites” per se, may not be as bad as what an average person has to go through in Lebanon, but why is that? One of the most obvious and catastrophic reasons is the typical government corruption, simple over-governing, power domination, and utter greed. But that is not really what I'm asking. I'm asking why it is acceptable that elites and everyday people differ and must stand so much apart from each other? Why such a gap? What makes them elite? What is the very core of their imagined superiority?
These questions generally need to be addressed all across the world and not just Lebanon. I have been reading about “hard-earned money” just vanishing into thin air way too much, but how exactly is this possible? The question not only pertains to the “Where does the money go?", but it can be reversed and asked in a way that states, "Where does the money come from?” How do central banks, be it in the United States of America or the European region, simply create money? Is it some kind of magic that makes money show up by rubbing a lamp, or does the genie do it by himself?
I want to note today that money changes a person far way too fast for them to understand and that one needs to be incredibly careful when handling money. So, before I dive into the situation as one and how it can change us as a species for the better, I think it’s very important to look at all the individual factors that make the whole, separate them from one another, starting from the root cause which is our current Global-political operating system.
Nowadays, people all around the globe fear the unknown. The fact that they are unaware of the truth that is about to come, the fear of failure, and the fear of lagging behind. If we take a look at our routine, we will get to know that we tend to upgrade our lifestyles with each passing day and moment in our lives. For example, we often update our mobile apps to get better performance. But, if we stop for a moment and think, we would probably come to an agreed realization that it's time we upgrade the education system as well as a lot of other systems. So, I want to ask you what is more important? For me, the most important thing is standing and acting collectively. The things we can do collectively cannot be done by extraordinary knowledge. Thanks to this internet thing, we are all connected 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But is it the sort of connection that we desire for a better future?
Today, I encounter many people who are either scared of, or in denial of what is to come. But to live in fear of the future is to undermine our collective potential and ability. I truly believe we need to be informed and educated, but apart from this we need to come together, we need to begin the process of operating more like a hive, rather than a divided, opposing and conflicting species. Nowadays, we all have this coherent ability to 'Swipe to unlock', tap the Settings, and click the "Update software" to begin an update on the our smartphones operating system, ultimately "bettering" the current one that we use to run our digital lives with a better one such as the "iOS14." Does this sound familiar? Nearly everyone reading this will say yes, because chances are you own some mobile computing device, and if you live in the States, then there is more than eighty-percent of a chance that it is an Apple device.
Maybe you still read the paper by physically turning pages and going to the corner store to get the daily news, but you are surely tethered...We cannot deny that we check our phones at least three times a day, if not three times an hour. But where has the regular update to our social OS (social operating system) gone? The current operating system we are running on has been stuck in the experimental phase for mere decades. “As the political parade passes, people gather to watch the show, choosing their sides of the boulevard. In so choosing, they self-segregate. Tribal affiliations are on display. It is a natural human tendency with deep roots in our evolutionary past.” As Science journalist Sharon Begley points out, we team up with people according to "whether they are likely to be an ally or an enemy." That illustrates how tribal we are. We are too hard-wired to be divided. It is the very act of participating in these games of politics that brings out our inherent tribal tendencies.
In my perspective, people should be connected by their hearts and minds. We can do so by thinking in the same direction, acting on the same notion and ultimately feeling the same kind of emotions. Today, in this era of inequality, bias and systemic racism, people are digitally connected via social media platforms but are drifted apart emotionally, mentally, and now physically. The main reason for this huge gap is the socio-economic system. The magnitude of differences between rich and poor. The hyper-gap between the educated and uneducated. This is the major problem as to why people believe in individual strength rather than collective. I truly believe it is better to be united and strong, rather than upgraded and far away.
Charlie starts the speech off with the words, "I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I do not want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery." What struck me so deeply right from the jump were the words"…We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that." You get this weird feeling when you help someone altruistically, it's when you know you have positively contributed to the progression of humanity.
“We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent, and all will be lost." Charlie hit it spot on, not only in describing the times of the past but describing the times of today and, in doing so, he has shed light on the fact that we have been here before, yet we are still here. Why are we still here? This time it is different. This time, we have been sent home and told to "Shelter-in-place", this time they have moved up from robbing millions of their freedom to robbing billions of citizens of any fundamental rights, paying them to be home, and then inflating the world economy.
The only thing that they miscalculated was thinking that the advantage was theirs by stripping us of our fundamental rights, they forgot that pulling everybody out of the matrix gave us the very last ingredient needed to finalize, and deliver the recipe for The Great Universal Awakening. The ingredient we had been longing for and needing all along was time. Time really does tell, and tell it has. This free (but actually not free), unscheduled and non-occupational time has ultimately caused an insurmountable amount of people to do what our parents, managers and bosses always told us not to do, that is to ask why.
Nearly everything we believed before now was dependent on some expert or “professional” telling us that something holds true. As young children, we felt we had to stop the curiosity and pondering in our early days when we are told, "Because I said so.” As grownups, we discover how to cease pondering altogether when people say, "Because that's just how things operate around here.” And you know that if you ever compromised things operating the way they do, you will most likely be out of a job. The implicit concept is, "Don’t worry about understanding it or the actual truth behind it, just shut up and keep it working.” If we never discover how to take something to the side, analyze the presumptions, question what we feel is right, and double question what we feel is wrong and only then reconstruct it, we wind up imprisoned in a self-perpetuating cycle of corruption, disaster, and evil. When it boils down to it, precisely what is not a rule of Mother Nature, is simply a discussed idea or a collective belief of the imagination.
The concept of money is a discussed belief
Nonetheless, everything is okay because you are successful. You will always be successful. Every person is successful in their own imperfect, unique and peculiar way. We have all been spending our lives in the chase for success. Have we ever stopped for a second to think as to what exactly we mean by success? What is it that we need to think of ourselves as successful? Money, fame, power, education, love, relationships, there are a thousand meanings of success varying from the perceptions of person to person. Only those that make the conscious choice to do so get their chance to experience success after planning and working for it. In contrast, the rest are merely a part of someone else's plan towards success.
On an individual level, all of us have our ideas of success. Some of us live and work for acquiring money, some for fame, some for success, and some people live for the relationships around them, and they consider those happy relationships as their success. What do you want to do? Listen to your heart and follow the path you want. Trust me, you are successful, and you have done the best you could, there is no need for you to be hard on yourself just to catch up to the success of others. It's their success, find yours...
