Resolve to protect the planet | Sunday Observer

Resolve to protect the planet

1 January, 2023

“The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water, and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.” – David Attenborough

“Would you like to save the world from the degradation and destruction it seems destined for? Then step away from shallow mass movements and quietly go to work on your own self-awareness. If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have, to give, is that of your own self-transformation.”
– Lao Tzu

Recorded history of the world shows that the concept of making New Year resolutions has existed at least since 1600s. One common theme in all such resolutions is the expectation of a change which will make the life of the individual or the group, who makes the resolution, better in the New Year, compared to the old.

Common characteristic

Leaders of countries are also known to have expressed such resolutions for their countries, sometimes indirectly through their budgets for the New Year. One other common characteristic of most of these New Year’s resolutions, irrespective of whether it is an individual or a country, is that they are broken in just a few days into the New Year.

People find it much easier to fall back to their comfort zones and live the life the way they used to do in the previous year. If the broken resolution was about the future of a country, then the leader who presented the resolution would be labelled as a ‘true politician’ who is expected to make false promises anyway. When citizens of a country get accustomed to such deceptions year after year, they tend to accept it as the norm and to not see anything wrong with it either. Therefore, the citizens will not see ‘making false promises’ as a reason to disqualify the particular politician at the next election and the cycle repeats.

Whether it is an individual or a country, if one expects to grow, develop, and improve, in any aspect, be it economic, physical/mental health, intellectual, or physical or spiritual wealth, one has to be prepared to transform one’s thought process. Because ‘to grow’ is ‘to change’.

Whether it is an individual, an organisation, or a country, a key ingredient in accepting change is being able to think differently. That makes ‘the way of thinking’ the most important factor in a growth process.

In order to change one’s way of thinking one will have to invest time and effort in changing the mind-set of the stake holders. When one changes the way of looking at things, the things looked at will be seen differently.

One has to have a suitable environment to accommodate such a change and that means one should be aware of the environment one is operating in. Since each one of us is living in today’s global village, when we think about such an environment, we certainly will have to take the effects of relevant global parameters and their influence over specific sub-environments narrowing it all the way down to the inner most environment one is living in.

Sri Lankans especially will have to make a conscious effort in improving the awareness of their economic, political, and social environment as they will have to make crucial decisions at the elections that are expected to be held early next year. The least they can do is to try to understand that the way they have elected people for governing bodies in the past has not been successful and therefore a change in the way of perceiving why they do what they do is an absolute necessity. We have a culture where most of the candidates for public offices and the voters who have the power to elect suitable people for those offices, both, use the opportunity of an election for their personal gains.

The candidate wants to win the election so that he/she will have the power to manipulate public funds and use the power of the office to become rich and the voter wants a particular candidate to win so that they can get rich by using the influence of the winner. Neither group has any concern about what will happen to the rest of the people or the country beyond their self-glory, let alone the impact of their actions on the sustainability of the planet.

Good example

We just experienced a very good example of that during the heavy rains in and around the city of Kandy last week. The damage due to unprecedented flooding will run into billions of rupees and public funds, that could have been used for meaningful development activities, will have to be used just to bring the city back to what it was before. One of the main reasons for the flood was the obstructions of waterways by illegal constructions. Though there was a comedic press release by the Municipal Council of Kandy saying that they are not responsible for those illegal constructions since they did not issue any permits or approvals, what they forgot perhaps was that stopping such illegal constructions or any other illegal activities within their jurisdiction is also one of their responsibilities.

This devastating flood could very well have been a result of a similar interplay between the politicians and the voters who elect them, as explained above, where the authorities turned a blind eye to those illegal constructions as a way of paying back for the support they got from the people who own those structures. People who are involved in illegal activities buying officials and politicians off may also not be anything new, especially for Sri Lankans. What people have to realize is that the cost of reconstruction or the rehabilitation of the city will be shared by all the tax payers of the country.

Some of the people responsible for those illegal structures may not even have been paying their fair share of taxes, since that also is usual practice with the people who have the ability to buy the officials and politicians off.

Therefore, the outcome is that only a few enjoy the benefits of those illegal constructions (or any other illegal activity for that matter) while the majority who live according to the law of the land end up being victimize twice, once by the destruction of the flood and then by paying for reconstructions they never thought they would have to do. Let us transform ourselves.

Let us resolve not to engage in such illegal activities, not to abuse public funds and offices, not turn the blind eye on illegal activities just to enjoy the private gains, not to torture consumers with exorbitant mark ups, not to vote or appoint rogues into public offices, and most of all not to assume that saving the country or the planet has to be done by others. We need a true Public-Private Partnership of saving the world by saving the country that can only be achieved through conscious efforts of realising common good. As Lao Tzu has said:

“If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have, to give, is that of your own self-transformation. We should all try to introduce higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”

The writer has served in the higher education sector as an academic for over twenty years in the USA and fifteen years in Sri Lanka and he can be contacted at [email protected]

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