One of the things that I sometimes think about is just how much we have changed as a species. From finding caves where we can live and survive, to making skyscrapers where we thrive. From hunting for our food, to being able to make our own. From using smoke signals, carrier pigeons and messengers to communicating long distance, to dialing a number on a machine and just talking to someone on the other side of the world.
Yes, a lot has changed, and the more we progress, the faster change has become. In ye olden times, it would be decades before the next significant change happened anywhere. Now that has been reduced to years and even months in some cases. Our phones and computers are constantly being updated, to the point where we often need to buy a new one every year at least.
Now the question that I want to pose to you is this: is all the constant change really necessary? What if we just stopped right now and made no more progress?
Here’s my take on what would happen if we did that.
First of all, I’m going to go out on a limb and take greed off the table, because truth is that we owe much of our progress to good old human greed. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I’ve talked about it in one of my previous posts here.
Now, since there is no greed, there will be no want, there would be less conflict and people would fight less with each other. Another thing that would probably happen is that we would stop exploiting resources, meaning no more mining, no more oil refineries and no more cutting trees. In fact, what most likely would happen is that there would be certain amount of regression in terms of technology and progress. In some ways, that’s not a bad thing, but we would have to kiss goodbye to all the progress we have made so far because no one would want to even maintain it.
So what do I say about always getting something new? I’m going to say two things:
We don’t really need to change at the extensively rapid pace that we are at now. Change and progress is good, but it should he paced. I for one don’t need a new phone and camera every few months. At some point, it stopped becoming about upgrading your lifestyle and became more about forcing someone else’s agenda on to you so that you have to spend more money. Plus, all this forced progress and change can be exhausting. Not only are you forced to stay on top of things or risk irrelevancy, employers will often force their employees to work almost constantly, all in the name of progress. I know I have had to suffer from that and I’m sure there are others who are in the same situation.
Despite what I said earlier, there are certain places where I feel progress should be made in a more forward manner. For example medical sciences and space exploration. Those are places where progress would be beneficial to us as a whole. The problems arise when greed gets in the way. As long as we remember that we are doing this for everyone’s benefit, it’s fine. But when we start to think about how we can push our own agenda, things can get unnecessarily complicated.
In conclusion, progress should be made, but we should do it for the right reasons. Not just because we can get richer because of it, it should also be so that we can all benefit from it, and I mean all. I know that sacrifices need to be made for progress, and I don’t mind sacrificing time and working hard for something. But when you start to sacrifice lives and people’s livelihood, that’s when you’re going too far. The way I see it is, you have to ask yourself how hard are ‘you’ willing to work for it, and I do mean ‘you’, the person who wants this result, not the people you are planning to push the work on to. If you are willing to do the work yourself to push your vision forward, then you’re on your onto something. If you just see the work as an obstacle and you find ways to push it onto others then you’ve built it on a bad foundation.
But hey, that’s just my take on it. I am no expert and I might be completely wrong.
That’s the end of this post. I hope you liked it and I hope you have a nice day ahead.
Alternative Yoga 