One drop raises the sea, a change of an individual changes the world
Some time in the middle of February of the present year (2007) Croatian newspapers wrote about an unusual case of fighting for a market. The quarrel between two women in retirement A. B. (68) and F. G. (65) about the right to clean the staircase in one building in Zagreb culminated in F. G. being transported to hospital by due to severe injuries.
A newspaper report writes that while F. G. was cleaning the stairs A. B. came shouting at her and grabbed her by her hair at about 6 a.m. She slammed her head against the wall several times and F. B. fell on the ground. A. B. took the broom and continued beating F. G. on the head. The injured cleaning lady was also diagnosed with a broken forearm. The attacker, not waiting for the police, left the scene and was not found at home the following day.
Explaining the motive of the quarrel a few neighbors informed that the women in question earned additional money by cleaning staircases in the buildings around and have already quarreled a few times about who would clean what, but never like this.
Power over food, power over people
Animals have always been fighting for a better grazing or hunting land. Younger generations overpower older. Bigger harass smaller. Stronger win over weaker. Stronger eat weaker. And the same survival pattern repeats itself. When a man joined them, the pattern transferred to families, work places, streets, markets...
Mankind has not changed since the appearance of first social organization called civilization. We differ from people in ancient Summer, Egypt, Greece or Rome (and in every later civilization) only in forms of materialism and social organization – we wear different clothes, communicate, travel and entertain differently, we understand marriage and holidays differently and also our sacrifices to Gods. And that is all.
People have not invented a single new emotion for thousands of years. People love, hate, respect, despise, support and attack each other since the beginnings of civilizations, the time of ancient Greeks and Romans. Depending on the psychological moment of the society they belong to people who are ready to start conquering places following their leader out of fear or personal interest, ready to stone to death or burn everyone whose idea threatens the existing system and order, denounce to the authority their neighbors if it is of some use for them, cheat the partner if it means more money in their pockets and make the slave/serf/servant/employee work in bad conditions if it makes profit that fulfills expectations from the owners or shareholders.
Well, where does a human wish to charge their expenses of success and well-being to someone else (even with his/her life) originate? One of my professors at the School of Economics in Zagreb told us once, "Economy, my fellow students, starts with your empty stomachs. When you fill them you are ready for something more.» It is that simple and accurate. The only reason why people in developed countries are less aggressive then those in undeveloped countries and the reason why people in developed countries live quieter lives than hundred years ago is called economic well-being.
Only because they know that every morning, from birth until they die, will start with full stomachs, they are involved in activities in higher social relations (culture, sport, politics, education, IT, etc.). However, I believe that, when they would continue their lives closer to poorer standards of living, due to some unfortunate events, they would not need a lot of time to copy the behavior of the miserable and poor and become aggressive in fighting for their piece of bread.
When interhuman relationships and views of individuals are taken to the basis of all things – food we need to survive – we all face the same problem, the question is only what group we belong to, those who produce food, or those who buy or steal food.
The beginnings of civilizations go back to the time when ownership over food was created. In the civilized world someone owns food, and the rest have to steal it (therefore we call them barbarian) or earn, i.e. buy it (therefore we call them developed). Everything you have has value only when it can be traded with food, so you can value your car, house or shares more realistically if you know how many times you could prepare meals for you and your family if you trade your car or house for food. Examples after the Second World War (as, after every war), when pianos, books and fur coats were traded for food are enough a reason to help us understand what we are talking about.
Locking, keeping and selling food is the basis of each economy that wants to be called civilized, because if you want to find food everywhere, we do not need social hierarchy. Then we do not need rulers, priests or warriors to produce, steal or defend the food from others. If the food is not under lock who would work? Everything starts with food – assets, money, securities and precious stones are only different types of value we can trade for food.
This conflict for the market (washing stairways) is only one micro world where basic human needs were activated again – hunger, thirst and a need to feel safe. All people have the same needs, only the majority of Earth population is still on the first or second level , while there is the lesser number of those who reached the economic riches that enable the need for self-actualization.
Taking by hook or by crook?
People have lived on this planet in a variety of ways, not participating in conflicts very often as there were not many people and the land was vast. Then the first nation or tribe came and all the rest had to live like them, following their rules was considered the only right way. Why was it important to impose their own way of work, life and social organization to other individuals and tribes, later nations and countries?
In life there are things you can not do yourself. In order to have everything you want, what you do not have you have to take from other people – those who can produce what you can not (products, services, emotions, ideas, information, etc.). What you lack you can take in two ways – pay for it or use force. You take things by force if you do not give anything in return. You do not have anything you could offer to the other party, so you take it by deception, theft, war or any other rapacious way.
All such individuals, and nations we could call predators as they snatch from others to achieve their own riches (in relation to present technologies). In return they offer only waste which is the product of snatched values or, under the slightly better circumstances, glass beads. It includes everyone who wants to reach their ambition in a way to transfer their costs to someone else.
By paying it means if you give something in return of the similar or higher value for the taken goods. It means that you have the product (service, emotion, knowledge, information, etc.) that the other party wants and is ready to pay for it. These individuals, and nations we could call givers, or perhaps good merchants, however, a behavior like this ensures sustainable development (and the survival) of our planet.
Whether their politicians admit it or not, but highly developed countries, became developed due to rapacious behavior in previous centuries, when they created (due to confiscating from weaker) a good material basis, that can be used today for imposing their products and services in creating the global market. Using it by (now without wars and violent snatching) trade to take from less developed countries everything they need (raw materials, work force, etc.), they continue the process whose negative effects are seen today as great changes in nature.
A hundred years ago, countries that were not satisfied with the share of world pie caused a few smaller or bigger wars, with the aim to take their share of someone else's fortune on the expense of those who had them but did not know how to protect then (which means sell them at lower prices on world or any other smaller market). Representing the development of a country to their citizens in material form only is a blow with the wind to the predators that use human need for owing things in order to create a new human race – homo shoppingus.
Rapacious societies, that need other societies only to take from them by war or trade what they have, do not need creators. They need consumers who do not think and do not create, but come to work only to perform their tasks, receive pay and go back to their homes purchased on loans, cars purchased on leasing, and spend their salaries on things they do not need, while they watch TV program which makes them more stupid.
My generation, born in the beginning of the 60s of the last century in a country bragging about self managed socialism (which was actually state capitalism reinforced by foreign credits to create apparent success of socialist idea and the efficiency of inefficient production) had to input a lot of creativity in their behavior. We did not have the support of technology – first TV sets with one channel and in black and white appeared in the mid 60s, first washing machines were used by entire buildings, there were no computers or Internet – so we had to organize our time by ourselves and to invent and create all the things we need. In a society where you learn from your childhood years that everything you need you have to do yourself or at least know something about it (in order to fix it) are good assumptions for breeding new inventors (engineers, pharmacists, doctors, economists, etc.).
But the predators like creators only when they work for them, they are not good if they live and work in societies the predators want to exploit. History teaches us that the older civilization tortured younger civilization, teaching it everything necessary to submiss the weaker. In our case ancient Romans did not learn from Illyrians or Slavs skills of warfare or trade, but the Romans trained Illyrians and Slavs how to fight and win, how to cheat during negotiations and alike.
The examples of Tartars and Mongols show that the civilization does not have to be older. It has to be more efficient – economically, politically, military and/or in social organization. Each efficient civilization tends to find among themselves individuals who are the best in their field of work, wants and can achieve the best and hand it on to future generations. As long as the only transfer of power criterion is efficiency and tendency to grow by work of new generations, the civilization develops. The fall begins when the efficiency is not the only criterion, but when it is not the criterion at all. Each civilization deteriorates from within, the moment it is not efficient enough to resist the more efficient civilization.
A mythology of predators and gray mass
The mythology of predators is based on philosophy pharaohs believed in in ancient Egypt. At that time, pharaohs and high positioned clerks and priests, would be balsamed after death, in belief it would ensure them eternal life. Then food, valuables and slaves would be placed in their tombs to be at hand in the afterlife. You would be shocked how many managers and politicians believe that this idea – snatch and do not pay attention to screams – will ensure their immortality. They take money, enough for a few lifetimes, believing only in taking and not understanding that to the other world they can not take anything but their bodies (and souls if they have left any).
What chances do tribes and nations have today in countries rich in crude oil, woods, water, sea or air when you put them against rich societies whose technologies, transportation means and internal consumer culture depend on this crude oil, trees, water, sea, air? What is crucial on the needs level where less efficient individuals, groups, regions and nations are? How can these civilizations resist predators? There is only one successful way in a long-term – knowledge. Knowledge which allows information (available to all) to turn into data (which only a few know how) to come to new ideas, products and services, that could be sold on the market for a price that allows equal barter or profit earnings.
Why does not such a simple answer have universal application? Because knowledge changes present condition, which does not suit those who achieved profits and material riches under the conditions. There are individuals, groups, societies and number of organizations which impose and freeze conditions in which they make the maximum benefits and will never allow any changes for someone else's benefit from the same or other group. With the strengthening of global market individuals, companies and countries who are already economically very strong want to take more from weaker ones, using individuals among the weakest. Hence, each group has an individual who would like to achieve his/her personal goals in gaining riches at the cost of other members of the group, making things easier to predators.
There is a beautiful scene in the movie Out of Africa when the leading actress opens a school for Black children from the local tribe. The hut is built, children are impatient but the old tribe chief slowly walks toward the hut and using the knife makes a cut on a certain height. He turn to our heroine and says, "Only children who are below this line can attend school." It raises the question, "But, why?" He answers, "By the time they grow up I'll be dead." And really, how many times someone drew imaginary line preventing those who are coming to do something with their capabilities because they were "too tall" for the taste of those surrounding them?
How can you gain benefits for yourself without forcefully snatching it from someone else? How can we as individuals stand against negative effects of today? How much is globalization the result of greater predators' demands? Globalization is the process which you could win over only with individualization. Only if you are not a member of this gray mass. Do you know what gray mass is?
When we talk about people and market, gray mass is the name for a group of individuals (or societies) that are on the same market, and when someone from this mass has to choose (or employ) some of them, grayness becomes the color that makes all individuals similarly good (or bad). When you face grayness, what would be your main criterion to choose the person A, and not B or C from the room with gray individuals? It means that you entered the store with similar products. What will be crucial in choosing one product and not the other?
Do not torture yourself too much, the answer is simple. When you have to choose from the gray mass your main criterion is lower price. When you work with people who did not try to offer something nobody else offers, but have knowledge and skills like the majority, then at lower price you will find similarly good service or work capabilities like with those who ask more for their gray average.
What awaits Croatia in the company of older and more efficient civilizations, after many years of choosing those less socially effective, with the attitude "to me, and only for me", making negative selection in science, army, politics, economy and education? What can happen in the society that can count fingers on one hand all capable individuals that could move other individuals, ready to follow them? What are the frames of Croatia joining the EU, among older, more experienced and efficient economies?
The society of knowledge or homo shoppingus
As it is very difficult fighting against the stronger, everyone will try to gain something for him/herself in the trade we mentioned at the beginning of the text. When you choose trading approach in a contact with a different civilization, you must have something you can trade with. If individuals must have ideas, information, products, services, emotions and something of similar interest to the other party, society must also have all these. You can trade with five manifestations of their own material values: products, services, knowledge, information and inheritance (mostly assets). Where are we?
Croatian products do not have significant international value (only regional) and the world market; services are mostly reduced to sun and sea, and a few sport successes (which we place into the day of national price instead of artistic achievements). In our society, based on the official statistics, almost 16% of population is illiterate, and only 6% are of higher, graduated and post graduated degrees, so gray is predominant life and business color. It means that approximately 700.000 citizens of Croatia is fully or semi illiterate, and only 250.000 people have enough formal education that should be able to apply acquired knowledge in better businesses than low paid physical labor (digging ditches, sewing, etc.), and 3.5 million citizens (at least their number coming of age is proud with elementary and secondary school knowledge which have similarly educated Hungarians, Ukrainians and Chinese (who ask for less money for the jobs they can do).
The information that someone else would not know we do not have (satellites belong to older and more efficient civilizations) so in the end we only have inherited family treasure, i.e. assets (land) that we trade with (and pay off credits) to be accepted by more efficient than we are.
What should we do in order to trade well with older and more efficient than we are (meaning to get the same or similar value for what we give)? The change of views would mean complete change of existing social relationships. Everyone who built their success on political and family relationships, copying the eternal matrix of obedience, averageness and humbleness should prove their efficiency on the market. Entertainers (singers, actors and sportsmen) should be on top of their abilities on the international or at least European scene. Politicians should monitor city services, army and police and their performance in order to make city services function well, and not to come to the position of authority in order to make decisions on spending state budget for covering expenses of the party in power.
Entrepreneurs who succeeded on the market with their ideas and work, at the same time they employed local people and placed their products and services on the world markets would finally be satisfied. Teachers would be people with new ideas and knowledge, and know how to transfer knowledge to new generations so they can be better than us. The main success criterion would be economic efficiency, new ideas and social accountability towards people we live with. Then we would have chance in negotiations with older and more efficient civilizations.
But predators seek average. They look for homo shoppingus. The average whose curve goes down. How many companies, departments in hospitals and in universities were ruined only because, for example, professors thought they would live forever, so they drew the invisible line not allowing anyone else to grow up before they die? They allowed someone else to show how much they know and can (in the field they defended as their natural and inherited property), only when they found candidates who are harmless enough in a way that they would not reach the level of their mentors even when these are too old to walk and breathe.
The success formula is related to its duration and is as follows: "First-class people (teachers) choose first-class associates (students). Second-class people choose third-class associates." Those who are justifiably sure of themselves are not afraid that the quality of their associates would jeopardize their status within the group, but are trying to bring the best who can improve the group results and ensure the duration of achieved success. On the other hand, those elected to be leaders by some other criterion that does not include a lot of efficiency and development logic, choose people worse than them, who would execute their orders. So, no one would se how much they do not know.
Knowledge is strength, knowledge is power
Efficient people by definition should be people who have knowledge. Owing to innovative and creative people in their spheres and forms of human work societies should advance and their knowledge should change the world. But, very often they have problem with what they do and the consequences that appear after their activities. Do you remember why? Because they are not parts of the gray mass and because they bring knowledge that can change society and its relationships. Therefore they do not have to be molded in the grayness and make them play the game that brings nothing to the development.
Do you understand now why A. B. smashed the head of a younger F. G.? Because of work that they could charge a few hundred kunas. For whatever the reasons they came to the situation that they had not saved enough money to live at the old age. For the same reasons they can not offer the market other knowledge expect cleaning staircases. Due to the need for food and material safety one of them was ready to place the other in hospital in order to take over her job at the value of a good business lunch. Because she does not have anything else, A. B. was left with aggression toward weaker in order to survive.
Do you understand why many companies on the domestic, but also on the world market behave as the rude A. B.? Because they do not have knowledge, ideas, products to create new markets and earn profits, so they turned to stealing markets from companies that are weaker. Instead of becoming creative whose knowledge allows them to become ahead of competition, they are becoming predators fighting for their piece of prey (market) because that is all they have. And so, colored in gray, they console themselves that they are "players" without understanding that a behavior like this only postpones the inevitable end.
Such a behavior is characteristic to all people without ideas and entrepreneurial creativity. I know a lot of politicians, managers, professors, lawyers, doctors and politicians who became gray among people who are their competition on the market. They found themselves in a situation when they do not have any more knowledge to detach from the gray mass, so they could only use methods similar to our A. B. to keep their positions or gain a better ones in conflicts with weaker competition. The truth is that they do in a more subtle way but with the same effect for the victim.
A change can change
Charles Kettering wrote, "The world hates changes, and only changes bring progress." And here we have a paradox – the only thing you can be sure of during your life is that everything will change. Even if you do not do anything, a new second replaces the previous one. And what happens when change occurs?
During the change or due to a change a new situation is created. A sign, whether positive or negative is given by us. If we give it a positive sign then the change is a new opportunity to do something better, of a better quality, more value and more innovative than before. If we give it a negative sign, then we have a problem. And what do people do when they have a problem?
A lesser number of people solve the problem in the best way they can. All others behave following standard patterns; they either ignore the problem, push them under the carpet or create new ones to cover the old. When the change becomes the problem these people try everything to avoid the change.
When we talk about changes a fire metaphor comes into my mind. In order to keep fire and warm those around it is not enough only to start it. It needs to be kept going. A new fuel needs to be added. Sometimes ashes have to be removed, because it chokes the fire. It is enough to shed it, find live coals and the fire can start again. I think it is completely irrational and crazy to believe that without all this it would burn again.
How to do the same with our lives? The moment we were born a new fire was started that needs to be kept by adding new fuel in order to keep it for a long time. Every time we feel cold, it reminds me that it is not enough to have warm homes. We need warm and kind people and warm relationships. No one can survive in the cold. Not even those who keep coldness within themselves because they do not have anything to keep their fire burning, as well as, people around them who should warm themselves using this and their own fires.
The story goes that Hêphaistos , while he was, by the order of Zeus , chaining Prometheus (he was the one who gave fire to humans) on top of the Caucasus said, "Vain are your complaints and sighs for the Zeus's will is merciless, as are the hearts of all who recently stole power " So, if we know that lamenting and sighs do not help, then it is time to fight back.
How to fight back
In April 2007 the Security Council in the UN discussed climate changes and its affect on people for the first time and it warned that the global warming could become a catalyst for new conflicts in the world. The Council members announced that they would hold a meeting by the end of the month on how climate changes threaten international security.
"Traditional motives of human conflicts will probably be intensified by the climate changes influence." – it was stated at the meeting, to indicate that the changes in these first years of the 21st century, like extreme weather changes, drought and sicknesses, increased ocean levels and migration of coastal population, new conflicts based on old reasons, do not affect predators in their triumphant walk toward general disaster.
While climate changes threaten to destroy a great part of natural inheritance, developed countries do not reduce emission of gases in the atmosphere, the quantities of crude oil extracted from the Earth or cutting trees which turns fertile soil into the dust. Miracles, nature has been creating for thousands and millions of years, disappear due to irresponsible and uncontrolled rapacious human nature.
The increased hunger in Africa, lack of water in the longest Asian river Yangtze, empty river Rio Grande, raised the sea levels and melting of icebergs on the Himalayas is not something that happens to someone else. People in countries that are not directly affected by climate changes and are listening to the media are turning into unimportant homo shoppinguses (who can be easily replaced), without understanding that with their neglect they contribute to disappearance of the world they consider theirs.
And for this reason we could ask the following question, "What to do when everything is destroyed? What will happen when the air becomes the subject of trade or war? What will happen when the riches of a person is reduced to full stomach, because the person managed to eat that day?" As long as a person snatches without thinking of the consequences, he/she will be one or two steps ahead of nature. But when he/she becomes tired, stops due to a problem he/she can not solve, nature will take back what belongs to her – hurricanes will demolish houses, floods will take away ground, roads will sink, and water pipes will be clogged with lime brought by the same water.
In its essence, nature is merciful. Its anger does not last long. Fire dies out. The storm blows itself out. The flood withdraws. When it blows out its anger nature is ready to make peace with everyone who wants to live at peace with her. But, it seems like the man was not created in the same nature. Instead of living in it, he wants to submit it to himself and he calls it progress. The truth is very painful – if he continues treating nature as his enemy, submitting nature is a war the mankind will lose in the end.
A few people think about the message Indian Chief Seattle gave in 1854 to the American President in Washington D. C., when the latter wanted to buy great Indian territory in the North-West part of America (today this is Washington state), promising the reserve for Native American people. This letter to a White man is still fascinating after 150 years with its beauty in expression, deep sense for nature and environment, unabated strength warns a modern man with an eternal message, " We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father's grave, and his children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert."
If you wave back claiming that there was nothing you could do, I propose to move the cart you filled with different goods and continue your walk in the mall, to the next shelf. Others will make decisions for your survival. Ok, let us try again, how often do you become dissatisfied with any political, legal or managerial decision which was directly reflected to your standard or health? Often or too often? And what do you do? You wave back again and say, "There is nothing I can do." Really?
Each political, managerial and other decision that affects your life, as general as it seems, is personal. Politicians make decisions that reflect our personal economic and social consequences. Even simple pickpockets make decisions which include theft of our salaries. So, if a politician, senior manager or a thief thinks that he or she can implement the decision that is bad for you or to those you care about, take it personally. You should understand that it is a short way from someone's irresponsible, rapacious decision to polluted river near your house or your empty stomach and then you become angry.
Judicial system will not help you with this – it is slow and cold, even when it is not in hands of a local person in power. In most cases the little people are hit by the hand of Justice while people in power work their way through, laughing. The people in power are hit by the hand of Justice only if someone with more power crosses their path. Under this circumstances the Justice unfolds the blindfold, determines the punishment depending on how much the more powerful wants to hurt the less powerful and covers the eyes again to avoid looking at the courthouses.
If you want justice, you will have to fight for it. Take it personally. Pass on the message. Become important. Harm those who harm you the most. In this way you will increase possibility to be understood seriously next time. They will consider you dangerous. And be convinced: if they take you seriously, if they consider you dangerous, then the predators will not attack you to take something from you, without giving you something back in return. They will try to offer you the value you expect. The strength of your social status is the only difference between the role of an important player (which is the only one that could save you the life you want to live) and the little people role, where someone else decides about their lives.
How can you become the important player? It depends on what you understand under this term. If for you the important player is a person who has a lot of money and material value, gained in a rapacious way, then you will not understand that these people are in conflict within themselves, with other people and in the end with nature. The same way they will throw trash out of their cars they would without thinking use deception, invalid contracts, or some other compulsion or, for example, as it happened in Croatia after the Croatian War of Independence (1991 -1995) tens of thousands of people were thrown to the streets by illegal privatization of companies not thinking about the consequences. In the same way, if they are ready to dismiss so many people from towns they live in, what is than a village in Asia or Africa that they have to destroy to make place for a new oil pipeline?
To succeed in a nice way is much harder, but in long-terms brings more riches, quieter dreams and healthy nature we can leave to our children. What will you do if you want to succeed with your knowledge, social accountability and in harmony with nature? You will respect human and God laws (regardless of religion, as in all religions God seeks love and respect), you will learn and want to know and see more. Then you will find the area in which you are the leading expert and charge your knowledge. Then you will look after your health and fitness and you will never forget that your relaxation is a chance for someone else to take something from you.
You say that this behavior is hard, takes long and is demanding? It demands belief in yourself, trusting other people and often character checks. Of course, it is easier to succeed using force, but the force has a flaw – it lasts until someone stronger arrives, and his force annuls ours. The success in a nice way lasts until someone smarter arrives and his/her intelligence triggers ours.
Powerful politicians, managers, even the petty thieves will negotiate with players. The little people will be terminated. Do you know an old financial saying, "A man who owns the bank a thousand euros, is the debtor. The one who owns a million euros is a serious business partner with whom the bank will negotiate reprogramming of the debt." The same is in every day life. If you are worth, your elimination is easier. And your termination (physical, psychological or financial) will always be adorned with the offence it is only business, the world works this way, the life is like this and it is nothing personal. You know what? It is personal! No one can defend you from predators unless you do it yourself. Say, "Now, it is enough!." Change your views, make a move and fight back.
Some people will do it by force like people on the river Niger delta, who kidnap employees from oil fields held by foreign companies, to warn the world about the problems imposed on them by a few predators in their government, destroying nature for a few percents of commission. The changes will be initiated by citizens of developed countries protesting in the streets of big cities and fighting the police.
Other will try it in a nice way. They will sit on a chair with four legs and will be less dependent on politicians and managers who want us to accept the views different from ours. What does it mean sitting on a chair with four legs?
A story about a chair with four legs
Creating the strength of an individual or society could be presented with a story of a chair with four legs. When you have only one strength, one source of income, only one idea you follow or everything you have is your inheritance you have to sell to pay bills, then you are sitting on a chair with one leg. This chair is very unstable, it is hard to keep the balance (there are no quiet periods) and the fall is the usual consequence. While you are sitting on a chair like this, it is hard to say: No, I do not want to, because the people around you would show you the bills you have to pay or interests for the loan, so you do not have much of a choice.
If you add a new leg to your chair (for example, someone else earns money in your family, you are the expert in two fields, keepers of averageness missed the genius who can make a new product or service, so you have a stronger economic background), you would live your life easier but be careful not to fall asleep in the chair. Well, the caravans that were conquering the Wild West were ensuring a nice sleep to pioneers because the guards were sitting on chairs with two legs. It seems rather stabie unless you fall asleep. And then – crash! – and you find yourself on the floor, but you closed your eyes only for a moment!
So, if you want to sleep and relax, the chair needs the third leg. It can be another source of income, more business partners, higher education or new knowledge and alike. The chair with three legs is more stable, but can not grow as the point of stability moves toward instability. This chair will hold you, but if you a bit more ambitious, you will need the fourth leg.
Now we are talking about the chair we all know. It is a classic, stable chair that holds you without the fear of falling down, even if you fall asleep (unless you do not sit comfortably or you sleep restlessly). In other words, if you assure enough income not to depend on only one, if you know enough that in case of notice you can find a new job easily or open your own company and the circle of people you know or work with is big, then the chair with four legs is stable enough to hold you.
What does this story tell you? That almost everything depends on you. The stronger is your personality, the more you know, the more successful is your communication, the more information you have in your head and at hand the chair you are sitting on is more stable. The more knowledge and efficiency there is in a society you live in, and the economy govern politics, this society is more developed and more successful.
There is a Chinese saying, ”When in darkness, do not curse the dark. Light a candle." It should be much easier today – you just press the switch and turn on the lights. When we talk about our lives then the switch is in our heads. So close and yet so far away. Hidden and lost in layers of prejudice, habits, unsolved problems,disorientation and wrong views, the switch is too far away like in a head of an inhabitant from a different planet, millions of light years away. Someone's view could be dark, fluent mass of predator's quick sand in a swamp where everything drowns which is average and controlled, and the main law is "stronger eats weaker". Your view could be a fertile soil out of which emerge products everyone wants to pay for, barter for their products, while the nature blossoms under the sun.
This text is among many you are going to read about the change of your views about yourself and the world around you. To some you will believe, some you will notice, and some you will not like. What is important is that you do allow someone else to charge you for their success. Your survival in a society you live in starts with an empty stomach. When you fill it, you are ready for something more. Even the highest heights you will reach with your own efforts. With no cheating or fixing results. Only if you really want to succeed. And as one drop raises the sea your change can change the world.
