It is quite easy to understand the reason for our own choices and preferences. It is far more difficult to empathize with another to discover and understand the reason for their choices and preferences. If we desire absolute freedom to live as we so wish without interference, we must desire absolute freedom for our brothers and sisters all over the world.
Peaceful people engage in decision making everyday based on complex criteria that only they can apprehend. We may have our provincial ideas about how others should live, but to endeavor to coercively impose our views onto them individually or via the guns of the State would be the very definition of slavery. That would make us the masters and them the slaves.
Most people are struggling in their own lives to discover how to live and what are the best choices to make. If we cannot know the optimal manner in which to live, to expect others to bend to our will about what is best for them would be the height of hubristic folly. The only logically consistent choice is absolute freedom for all without exception provided nobody is being aggressed upon. This is the essence of Free Market Capitalism and Voluntaryism.
A new year is upon us. Many people wait until January to reform their lives. To many people, the arrival of the new year is the catalyst for change and improvement. Why wait for a socially acceptable time for taking steps towards the betterment of yourself? The future is not secured to any of us. Life carries with it no guarantee. Life is a gift granted us by the universe. The present is a gift. The manner in which we daily make use of this gift determines the nature and meaning of our lives.
What do you want your legacy to be? How do you want people to reminisce about you? What stories would you like to be told about you? What does success mean to you?
If you have earned your wealth legitimately through voluntary trade, if you have started a business and produced a good/service that has improved the life of others, if you have listened to the problems of another with unconditional compassion, if you have made those around you smile and laugh with pure joy, if people flock to you for the loving and gentle energy you exude, if you have helped one person to breathe easier, this is a success in my book. Be the bright candle in a dark room! Be the inextinguishable light that illuminates the abyss! Live such that the world is poorer because of your absence. We are here only for a brief eye blink in history. Make the most of it! Happy New Year! 🙂
It is Christmas Day today. Children all over the world will be waking up to a plethora of gifts underneath their tree. They will be shrieking in joy at the excitement of opening up a gift just for them. They will be playing with their new games or toys for the very first time with all the exhilaration that animates even the most phlegmatic and stolid amongst us. Whatever your views are regarding Christmas or the holidays matters little. Is this explosive elation in our children not one the most precious things to witness in our children?
Many parents work hard building a business or acquiring wealth so that their children do not need to “suffer” as much.
Ironically sometimes out of an environment of mild privation emerge the most dedicated and passionate individuals.
Strong work ethic and a desire to achieve are the pillars of success.
There is so shortage of rags to riches stories.
“Success is ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm”, Winston Churchill
Just as we, as parents, must encourage our children to devote themselves to their craft if they want to achieve mastery, so too must we encourage them to seek self-knowledge.
Knowledge that is learned of one’s own accord becomes owned as opposed to knowledge passively given to us by others.
Being comfortable in solitude or surrounding oneself with a small group of soulful genuine friends can facilitate this process.
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Before I leave you I would be remiss if I did not make mention of the Christmas Truce of 1914. Simply put, it was a brief pause in the bloodshed of the trench warfare that comprised World War I.
To the immense chagrin of the superior officers for one day there was no more slaughter.
For one brief day there was camaraderie, friendship, and benevolence. There was hand shaking, retrieving and burying of the dead. There was exchanging of gifts and conveying heartfelt messages of love. There was drinking, eating, laughing, and playing of games. For one brief day amongst the carnage, humanity shone through.
The immense tragedy is that this magnanimous sentiment lasted only one day before the killing commenced once again.
This is the power of one idea!
This is why I write, produce videos, and interviews! This is why I focus my attention on discussion of philosophy, morality, and economics!
War, oppression, and injustice are largely the result of ignorance and misunderstanding, not evil.
I hope you all carry this Christmas spirit of compassion, kindness, and humanity far beyond this one day. I hope you all are able to carry it with you throughout your lives. This is what changes paradigms. This is what improves the world.
How does one change and improve the world? It is not necessary to invent outrageous things like cars, air conditioning, smart phones, computers, shoes, Google, or the Internet to effectively improve the world. Most people will never invent such magnificent things but that does not mean we are impotent to improve the world in our own little way. Many times all that is required to bring about positive change is to tell a joke, get somebody to laugh, give a hug, lend a compassionate ear to another person’s problems, spend quality time with another person, raise your kids to be gentle, compassionate, kind, and loving human beings. It costs $0.00 to be a decent person.
