Forging our future, not just letting it happen (#4482)

      I know that there are too many of us who are sitting back just letting reality take it course without being a force for making it into what we need. It is so easy to sit back and hope that the rest of us are strong enough to force reality into a more equal and fair paradigm. We don't have to take a stand and then defend that stand regardless of the cost. We calculate that being silent and subservient we are not rocking the boat with some who we have made too important in our lives. The trade off for our doing nothing is the little bit of table scraps that come our way. The dependency on others for our benefit is the cost we pay for not being strong enough to forge our own lives with our own principles for living.
     The only thing holding us back from being our own persons is our fear. Afraid of striking out into the unknown without that pacifier we have been given to tie us to being subservient human beings. Like the Allegory of the Cave scenario in The Republic, where the shadows on the walls are sufficient for us to accept as reality instead of the sun shining outside the cave. The fear that we may upset some who are not us but hold sway over us, is the fetter that keeps all of us constrained. Without all of us moving forward into our destinies we are doomed to the marching in place scenario. Our fear is what must be defeated and shame on anyone who would feed us that fear so that they don't have to face their own.
     We don't each have to be super human to effect change in the world. We only need to be the better and best version of ourselves in our own little worlds. When we all do this then there is no room to exist for the despicable who are only alive when the rest of us are dead inside. Let me be clear here, each of us has the right and power to be alive as who we are, not as who others want us to be. I know that it isn't easy to know who we are at the beginning of life but there are many clues easily recognizable. Do we care for others? Are we more hero than villain? Do we love more than hate? These questions should all be answered early in our childhood lives and when so it sets us up to becoming whatever iteration of human being we hope to become as adults.