Read any newspaper. Watch any television news program. Listen to any radio show and we're made aware of the world around us. Information travels at the speed of light and there are few stones left uncovered around the globe. Auto accidents, plagues, murder, and mayhem, sickness and distress. By and large this is the world we're presented with. Day after day, hour after hour, we're inundated with information so quickly there's barely time to absorb one breaking story before the next one is shouted at us.
Politics and finger-pointing. He said, she said. It's someone's fault, I'm innocent. We can all relate to theses types of thing simply because its what's presented to us. And for some terrible reason, it seems to be what "we" want to see because it garners responses from us all. "Down with this and up with that", we shout. Human differences are an integral part of what make us human and that's vital. But what about our human commonalities? I think they are far more vital to us because they create alliances. Differences create oppositions, and I'd like to assert that respect creates treaties.
This leads to the second of the two worlds my title implies that there are. The second world is really only a part of the one we share, but it's less emphasized and doesn't make the headlines as often, but I really think it should. It's a beautiful world, full of helpful caring people. It celebrates the diversity in each of us and it uses that diversity to bring us all closer together. Isn't that odd, I just said differences create oppositioins, didn't I? I still stand by that statement, but only prior to applying the question: "Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?"
Let me give an example. Perhaps I hear a song on the radio. It's a remake. I might thumbs-down the effort because it's not right. It's not right because it's different. And now I am opposed to the remade song. But if I look for the differences in the song with an open mind, I can be happy with it even though it is not the original version. I may still perfer the original, but I can at least accept the remake. I've created a treaty with it, so to speak. I can take this process a bit further and apply it to other things. It's not one size fits all, but it helps me. So, back to this second world now. In addition to the beautiful and helpful people there is physical beauty.
The colors and the sounds and the smells of the world around us. Plants and animals and water. Earth and dirt and farms bursting with produce for as far as the eye can see. It's the old man sitting on a park bench enjoying the life that's rushing all around him. Maybe he smiles now and again. Maybe he removes his cap and dabs the sweat from his brow with a mongrammed hankerchief. And just maybe the monogram on his hanky was stiched on by a loving wife, now long deceased, who at the time was imagining the pleasure on her man's face when it was finished and she presented it to him. She may have already been feeling the acceptance and self-satisfaction that comes when you've given a well received gift. Maybe his random smiles are his passing thoughts of her.
It's a world where you open the door for someone or help carry something heavy on behalf of a fellow shopper. Trust me on this one, tall people love to get things from a high shelf for folks who can't easily reach. It 's a world where a man and his son get out of their car, despite the blaring horns and growing line of impatient commuters, to lay hands on the trunk of a stalled car and push a disabled vehicle (and it's driver) safely from the lane and onto the roadside. In that world, the father and son might offer a ride, a can of gas, or the use of a cell phone.
In this world, when a proud child displays his or her artwork, regardless of it technical quality, it is praised and complimented because we understand the creativity and effort that goes into bringing any art form to life. There is never a need to point out that the Easter Bunny doesn't really have fingers on the hands holding the basket.
It's the same world where a mom and dad take turns teaching their clild to ride a bike, knowing all the while that the child will probably fall off and very likely get a scrape. If that happens, courage is restored by the parents encouragement and confidence. In the case of teaching a child to ride a bicycle, probable falling and scrapes are the risks taken to gain that brand-new freedom that one can only feel and never explain through words when we learned to ride.
In this world there was a wedding on Saturday. There was a funeral last Thursday. Thousands of high school kids graduated and are now pondering futures that are so full of possibilities, it's mind boggling! This world is crowded too! There are people everywhere busily going about their days. Smiling, laughing, crying, running late for work and getting well-deserved promotions. There are people sharing food and advice or gathering it for others who may not be able to or in an easy position to. There are phone calls to Gramdmas and "I love yous" exchanged. In the second world there is a man paying a few dollars on behalf of the woman and her baby in front of him at the grocery store, because in her haste, the mother miscounted and thought she had more money than she did.
It is in this second world that I never have to apply that question "would you rather be right or be happy" because acts of kindness and support and consideration for other people is always right. And it always makes me happy.
As I said, the second world is just a part of the first world. And together they are the world in which we share our time and our lives. The news, televison and radio are not devoid of relaying information about world two, but the ratio between the two leans ridiculously toward the bad things and not the good things. I believe that each of us can affect a change by focusing on that second world; it's all around us. We can consiously live there and not just vacation there, We can invite others to live there with us. We can raise our children there and maybe one of the speakers at those high school graduations I meantioned a while ago will tell the eager young men and women about that world and how they are its up-and-coming custodians.
We can lead them there by our examples and if we're not yet there ourselves, we can follow a friend. But we can get there. The ratio can be changed. And by the way, the next time you stop to smell the flowers, pick one. Then give it to someone else to enjoy.
