Inequality For All

The weather has been cooling off a little and there has been a lot of rainstorms lately, so I am getting kind of excited for Autumn to come around. It's this time of year that working at a clothing store is probably not the best thing for me because I love the Fall clothing. Give me boots, sweaters and skinny jeans any day over bathing suits and shorts. There is just something comforting about a cozy outfit, and I also love the Fall clothing colors like reds, browns, and burnt oranges.

I have often heard people mention that if someone doesn't like where they are in life, or want to reach a goal in their life, they need only to work their way toward it with everything they have and if they don't accomplish what they wanted to, it is probably their own fault or it wasn't meant to be. There seems to be a general belief that all people come into this world on equal terms, or if not, they can level the playing field with their actions.

This is true to some extent. A person who works hard to get a job probably has more chance of getting it than someone who doesn't try at all. Someone who was born poor and made a lot of money later on probably worked really hard to do that. If you go on dating websites and work toward meeting new people, I bet you are more likely to get married than someone who doesn't bother. But it is my firm belief that hard work doesn't always make the difference, and people are never equal not matter how we try to make it so.

Consider someone who is born with great beauty compared to someone who is born with a horrible disfigurement. No matter how the disfigured person tries, they will never look like the beautiful person, and will never be afforded the privileges that come with good looks. Now this disfigured person may work really hard and become a wealthy leader, and they may even get plastic surgery so they look more attractive, but does that make them equal to the beautiful person? No. It only means that they had to work harder to get a tiny bit of what the beautiful was born with, with no guarantee that it would even pay off.

I use beauty as an example, but of course beauty does not always mean you will have an easier or more successful life. It is only another variable in the infinite number of qualities that make us UNEQUAL. It is only easier to study because it is visible. But what about our invisible qualities? Our temperament? Our mental state? Our health? Our feelings? Even when we concede that people are not equal, we STILL tend to judge them on the visible and forget about the invisible. For example, you may see a homeless person and think, "Why doesn't he get a job? He looks healthy and he is not ugly. Getting a job can't be much harder than standing on the corner all day begging for money." But what do you really know about this man? Maybe he was born with a mental illness. Maybe he has chronic pain. Maybe he had several close family members and friends die. Maybe every time he tired to make a new start in his life, something terrible happened to bring him back down. You really know nothing, yet you judge.

The judgement of a homeless man may not be an everyday occurrence for you, but we judge everyone around us on a daily basis without knowing much at all. You think things like, "Why did that person cut me off in traffic? He must be an idiot. Why doesn't my friend do a better job at work? He must not be trying hard enough. Why doesn't my friend go to school? She must be lazy. Why did my mom treat me so badly? She must not love me."

The sad truth is that we make all these secret judgments when outwardly we are saying we need to celebrate each other's differences and embrace them for who they are. I think that the only way we can really accomplish this is to be understanding and accepting of others no matter who they are or what they have done. Give a kind word and some food to the homeless person. Smile at the person who cut you off in traffic. Support your friends through all stages of their lives. Love unconditionally.

It may be easier to judge than to love and accept. However, if you are judgmental, tread lightly, for you may not like it so much when it comes back around.

Ridiculous Religousness

I have never had a problem with people who are religious or spiritual in nature. In fact, some of those people can be the most loving, kind-hearted, wonderful people in the world. What I do have a problem with is people who accept their religion unconditionally without any thought into alternative beliefs.

I get it to some degree. You are raised in a religion, or you have a really good feeling about a belief, or it just feels "right". Feelings are not something to be taken lightly or easily discounted. Feelings can lead to a lot of important discovers about yourself and other people and life in general. The thing that I have a problem with is when people discount all other religions and believe that their way of doing things is the only "right" way. This really bothers me because who is to say what religion is right or wrong?

When asked how they know their religion is right, some people will say that they prayed about it and they had a good feeling about it, or God told them directly that it was the right religion. Well guess what? Billions of other people belonging to countless other religions have done the exact same thing and gotten the exact same answer that THEIR religion is right. It is pompous and ignorant to think that only a tiny fraction of these people got the correct answer.

So how do we know what religion to follow? The short answer is that we don't. I don't think anyone can know for sure that their religion is the best or true or ultimate religion. How can you know that you wouldn't have been a Buddhist or Hindu or Christian if you were born in a different time or place? I think the closest we can come to some sort of enlightenment is to explore every religion and people that you possibly can and try to gain an understanding of why each one believes and practices as they do. Only then can we clearly accept or reject these ideas.

Of course it is impossible to study every single religion in depth, which is why it bothers me so much when people reject all other religions. How can you know it is wrong if you don't even know what it is? Embrace your own religion and live according to its laws if you must, but do not reject others way of living simply because you do not understand it.