Recently, I was streaming a show about a woman who wants to escape her present life and move into the future because her mother was diagnosed with ALS and had 5 years to live. The woman said each day of caring for her mother feels like a year and she wished she would just die because it was exhausting, "I just want it to be done." I turned off the program before it was over because it triggered something in me that is a current topic of discussion: the euthanizing of the elderly, the handicapped, and terminating the lives of undesirables. The image is of one statistical analysis of crime (per 100,000 population) of the top 10 states in the United States. I find it ironic that the #1 location for crime is also our nation's capital and the smallest comparatively by size.
Life has lost value to the point that any inconvenience justifies the killing of another. We see this with crime running ramped, where theft is justified by need, want, or greed and anyone who stands in the way of another hell-bent on getting what they want is killed mercilessly. The victim's pleas are unheard, their faces are bashed, heads pounded into the ground, and they are shot or stabbed to death. In all cases, the ends justifies the means and everything evil goes unchecked. Society has devolved where rational thinking is determined by the most irrational concepts that have no basis in reality. Perception is everything; if I feel I can fly, I can. I can jump from the roof top and when I splat on the pavement below, people will walk past my dead corpse and celebrate my "being" me, even to my own destruction. No one will have tried to convince me that my beliefs are incorrect because my beliefs are celebrated even if they are wrong.
One of the most difficult challenges in life happens when you reach the latter seasons of your life and you can look back and see if you reached your goals or if you wondered off course and have regrets for the consequences of your choices. Time reveals everything in due time. With each decade you add to your timeline you learn things you can compare and contrast with your present situation. Memories of the past revealed through the trajectory of time allows you to set the course of your life. When you know where you've been you can measure your progress and stay the course or make a correction if you have veered off course. When you know who you were in the past in relation to who you are today you can change your circumstances and be a better person tomorrow. When all you know is the present and have no destination or purpose for your life you will repeat the problems of the past as if they were new. You will be more easily manipulated by those who have the memories and know the truth and use it against you. Ignorance breeds fear and makes us vulnerable. Truth gives us confidence and courage to face our fears in order to overcome them.
Look for the truth in all things. Challenge everything until you are certain there is evidence to support your beliefs. A person's opinion is not truth. A philosophy offered that has no history to support that concept may be rooted in a lie. Don't accept anything on face value because that is where you are most vulnerable to deception. When you feel something is not true, not accurate, or only partially true, believe that there may be an ulterior motive behind what you are being told. If the one telling the stories have something to gain (money, fame, power), question if they are motivated to lie, cheat, and steal everything from you, even to the point of taking your life. If you live in ignorance, you will die ignorant. If you do not see the people you are hurting, one day you will be on the hurting side of things. If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword. Everything that goes around comes back around and you will find yourself on the losing end.
"So be careful how you live. Don't live like ignorant people, but like wise people."
Ephesians 5:15 GNT