How many people have to want to fix the world for it to get better?

How many people have to want to fix the world for it to get better?

I propose an experiment—to see if the thoughts, prayers, desires of regular people, people without powerful positions or great amounts of wealth or names known in every household, can have a positive affect on the world around them.  Right now, most of us are wanting things to get better—but we do not all want it the same way.  We are thinking of personally helpful things like “I need some money”, or “I wish so-and-so was well” or worse, we are hoping some group of people seen as the enemy is destroyed so everything will be  better.

The first types of prayers and thoughts and desires are weak as generally only one or a few are thinking it and it is usually very self-serving.  The latter type is worse as it is destructive, and inevitably, whatever group we feel we belong to is in the cross-hairs of the group we want to see destroyed. 

What if, a growing group of individuals could focus on three things in a daily prayer, thought, meditation, mantra, (call it what you want—it doesn’t change it)  and that group grew and grew, sort of like the internet, so that people of many countries, beliefs, religions, political parties, races, genders, (you get the idea) were focusing on the same three things everyday at their time of stillness and contemplation.  Would it change the world like magic?  In a day?  In a year? In ten years?  How long would you do that to make the world a better place?

And if it wasn’t like magic, like a miracle, could the act of thinking of those three things daily change the individuals thinking them? 

I have seen that moment—critical mass, the tipping point, in which an idea went from pushing against unbelievable resistance to becoming the new normal on a small scale.  Think fashion—when was the last time you saw a room full of women in dresses?  One-hundred fifty years ago finding a room with a woman in pants would have been shocking.  Or living conveniences—in 1900 a house with a bathroom was a luxury, now a house without a bathroom is condemned as unfit to live in.  What was the tipping point, when did pants quit being rebellious and unseemly and start being OK for the most modest and conservative lady.  When did indoor plumbing become a requirement of all but the homeless?

Every change comes from somewhere, whether from plans or serendipity, but wouldn’t it be interesting to see if perhaps, instead of a small group at the top making the plans for the change they wanted, then beating everyone under them into submission, the small group could start in the middle and let the change flow to both those seen as most powerful/wealthy/influential, and those seen as most destructive/violent/dehumanized.  (I do realize those two ends may contain some of the same individuals)

The three thoughts I propose are:

•      Let the earth be healed so that it can continue to provide our sustenance.

• ·   Let people find their greatest joy in helping each other.

• ·     Let our leaders be filled with a need to serve that surpasses their desire for power, money or glory.

I will put those three things on a card and read it every night before go to sleep, and every morning before I start my day.  My goal is simple---if I do that, perhaps it will help—change the world, change me—I don’t know if it matters which.  If someone else starts doing the same, that will be two of us.   How many of us want a better world?  I would love to win the lottery, this is cheaper, and takes less time than my morning and evening ablutions.  This is not a chain letter; nothing bad will happen if you do nothing.  All I risk by writing this is the ridicule of friends and family and we have all had a bit of that at times.