Part 2 of 5 - Unveiling The Secret To Global Peace And Prosperity

This entry is a continuation of the entry dated 8/21/2011...

Part 2 of 5 - Unveiling The Secret To Global Peace And Prosperity

Today I will begin to unveil what I believe is the secret to global peace and prosperity. I will walk you down the exact same path of discovery that I followed. Here we go -

My first assumption is that the vast majority of citizens of Earth desire global peace and prosperity. This may be a stretch, but I believe it to be true. Since we cannot currently claim to have it, and it is assumed that the majority of global citizens desire it, then how do we achieve global peace and prosperity?

I start with the fact that the future of our planet and human existence, which is now in our incapable hands, will soon be in the hands of our children - the next generation. Children are our future. Our #1 most important job to influence the future of the planet and ensure human existence is to procreate. We must have children to ensure human existence on the planet. Then, I follow that fact with the assumption that how our children will run the planet will largely be influenced by their collective knowledge and experience; just as we now run the planet based on our own current knowledge and experience. If you can agree with that assumption, then the next thought is rather obvious, but here it is - The knowledge made available to our children and the experience they undergo as they mature are extremely important to the future of our planet! If you can accept that, then you probably see some logic beginning to develop:

    > The future of the planet is influenced by YOUR children’s knowledge and experience.

    > YOU have an influence over your children’s knowledge and experience.

    >Therefore, YOU have an influence on the future of the planet!

Logically speaking then, the #2 most important job we have to influence the future of the planet and human existence is to properly influence our children’s knowledge and experience.

Following this line of logic, the progression of questions becomes - Which knowledge should we make available to our children? What are these influential experiences and how can we, as parents and educators, shape these experiences? In what ways should we shape these experiences? Let’s examine these questions.

Which knowledge should we make available to our children? The majority of knowledge that we make available to our children comes from some basic sources that we can identify - it comes from us, as parents; it comes from teachers at our schools; it comes from the internet searches that our children perform; and it comes from relationships that our children build. As parents, we have varying degrees of control and influence over these sources. Therefore, if we really want to influence the future of the planet, then we should consider it vitally important to figure out exactly HOW to control and influence the sources of knowledge made available to our children. Pinpointing which knowledge to make available that would have the greatest positive impact on global peace and prosperity is the key question. This is one area in which we, as a society and individually, have dropped the ball. I don’t believe we have figured out how to properly perform our #2 most important job to influence and ensure the future of the planet and human existence.  I will attempt to answer that key question as we proceed down this path of discovery.

What are these influential experiences and how can we, as parents and educators, shape these experiences? In what ways should we shape these experiences? The experiences that our children will encounter are obviously many and obviously diverse. However, there is one general category of experience that we can identify as a game-changer in how our children will eventually run the planet when it becomes their ‘turn‘. That category is RELATIONSHIPS. The relationships that our children develop during their lifetimes play a major role in the shaping of their experiences. Consider the following relationships:

    Parent / Child
    Family / Child
    Child / Child
    Teacher / Child
    Community / Child
    Religion / Child
    Region / Child
    Country / Child
    Planet / Child

Let’s start by examining the parent/child relationship since it is the first one that is built. A newborn and mother. A newborn and father. How they relate to each other early on in the relationship has a tremendous effect on their future relationship to each other as well as the relationships with others that develop later in life. There is a tremendous amount of human psychology research that supports this fact.

A ‘bad’ relationship between two people (or between two entities) can almost always be traced back to something that occurred early on in the development of the relationship. In many instances, that ‘something’ is incidental and completely unintentional. For example, how many times have you heard about someone that has a psychological problem finding out through therapy that their problem was because of “mother issues”? In order to work through the issue, the process likely involves forgiving mother because she did not intentionally cause the issue…she did not know what she was doing...she just didn’t know any better! 

This is where I have to point out that we, as a society, have failed! It goes back to the point about which knowledge should be made available. If the right knowledge had been made available to the mother, before becoming a mother, she would have known better and her child would never have developed the mother issues!

To be continued…