ONE WORLD INDIVISIBLE

         

Rudolf Dreikurs, a student of Adler, said that all misbehavior arises from  discouragement. We are living in very discouraging times, so it’s no surprise that we see a great deal of misbehavior.  It’s difficult to find the post signs to guide us towards what is going right and what to do more of, because the media has made sure to focus our attention to what’s going wrong and have us pay a great deal of attention to all the misbehavior.  Anyone who is attempting to do something helpful or useful is just being ignored or worse, squashed under all the negativity that’s out there. Yet we are continuously making a “big deal” about all the negative, unhelpful and down right destructive behaviors people are exhibiting.  We are not looking for solutions or ways to solve the problems. We are looking to find more ways to be divisive and fight.  

Adler said that people who are well adjusted look to overcome  (over power if you will) the problems/challenges of life, not overpower each other.  When people feel they are worthless (a state of less than) they move to an imagined superior position to overcome the pain of feeling they don’t count, while pushing others down to a position of less worth.  We’ve gone so far down this rabbit hole, that it seems no matter who’s life we’re talking about it’s value is less then zero.  Money and power have taken the seat of honor.  We have all lost our way.  We are no longer in it for each other, but everyone for themselves. 

It’s too bad some of us can’t afford proper health care. It’s too bad some of us live in poverty.  It’s too bad our college kids can’t pay off their loans and can’t find a job. It’s too bad young men feel like the only thing they can do is join the military, so they can get benefits and a paycheck( even if it means they have to kill someone or lose their lives it will be honorable somehow). It’s too bad our kids do not like school because it’s all about standardized tests and they are being constantly evaluated and reminded  how they are not enough. It’s too bad that we are medicating them younger and younger with psychotropic medications, that will permanently alter their young brains. It’s too bad that parents are working two, three jobs and don’t have enough money or time, it’s too bad………!  Too bad, so sad for them, I have mine.  What happened to “ONE NATION INDIVISIBLE” ? What happened to “WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL”?  What happened to the idea of “BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE”?  What happened to “ THE GOLDEN RULE”?  We need to reclaim our humanity.  None of us are perfect but together we can accomplish great things.  I know this for a fact, because when I first came to this country at fifteen years old,  I went to a high school that within a week of my attendance there, had a knifing incident. They shut down the school for for a week, because of the racial fighting.  I didn’t attend much afterwards, for those few years it was like a war zone.  But ironically, many years later I started a charter school with my husband in that very same neighborhood, and all the hundreds of kids who came through the charter school had an opportunity for a very different experience.  We created a micro-community that followed the very ideals this country was founded on.  It was a Democratic school.  In all the eight years we ran it, the students lived by and believed in those very same ideals.  It is possible to make a change, if we choose to stop fighting and start doing something about what is happening here in this country. 

Take it back!  “ONE FOR ALL AND ALL FOR ONE”!  We can’t afford to do anything less.  We are in it together, and together we need to help each other out and fix this mess.  Forget politics, forget race, forget religion, forget all that divides us and makes us different and think about what we all want. What we want is not that different at all!!  We all want a safe place to live where we can work and play, where we can raise our children and hang out with our family and friends.  We all want to have enough money so we don’t have to worry about where our next meal will come from or how to pay our bills.  We all want to have a place to call home, fresh air to breath, time to go on vacation and time to relax.  We all want to be able to follow our dreams to be heard, be loved,  have a sense of belonging and connection to our community, (whatever that community may be).   We can be different and still have the same “human” worth.   We can give that to each other and to ourselves if we work together, rather than against one another.   

A few very powerful people, would have us do differently, so they can keep on doing what they are doing while keeping us distracted and busy fighting.   What better way, to allow them to keep on doing what they are doing under cover.

I’d like to end with a quote by Adler.  Who kept his faith in humanity as he was escaping to the United Staes during the time of the Nazis.

“There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish.”  
-Alfred Adler