Can We Change? Do We Change? Are We Fooling Ourselves?

What is the question behind these questions? Is it fruitless to keep working so hard to become better? Are we meant to transform ourselves? Are we stuck with what we were born with? Can we ignore all the advantages of our birth?

If we get low about our finances, the future of the economy, our lost pension, we could all probably use a jolt of coming to a poor country.Would our decisions be radically different if, for instance, every Israeli had to live in Gaza for a few weeks every year? Would we see what a dollar really represents if we worked as a maid in Nicaragua or any other poor country for a few days? The maids here work so very hard and their pay comes to less than $.50 an hour. They are glad to have any income. It took many many years for the people here to resent the greed and the cruelty of the Samosas enough to launch a revolution.

In answer to my own question I guess I would say that people often seem to accept their fate, their caste, their place in the grand scheme of things until they can't. That is until dying for something new is their only viable option, until they can no longer live with the status quo. It must needs be that there is something similar in questing for self-improvement regardless of social status. There is some truth in the concept of dying to become.  One must kill off the familiar, the easy, and move into the unknown. "I am going to stop doing drugs, even if it kills me." What courage is behind those words! "I am going to do unto others as I would have them do unto me." What a frightening commitment which would not only change your life but require constant vigilance and probably repetitive failures.

I suppose I think we very much can change if we have the courage, the stamina, the hope and the heart for it. When you lose heart all is lost. But, at the same time, maybe that is part of dying in order to become. A Puerto Rican shrink I knew said often, "The imperative to change is death." Same message. Die to become.

I am upset this morning at the news that Israel declared war on Gaza. David and Goliath. In 2001, right after the 9/11 attacks, Osama Bin Laden mentioned the his primary reason for the attacks was the Palestinian problem. So, here we are billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives later still facing the same exact problem with the same stupid cave man thinking. (I mean both sides). Aren't we suppose to be evolving? I am discouraged. I might need to go live in Gaza in solidarity.