Well, today my post title comes from:
“Self appreciation is essential to joyful life experience.” – Abraham Hicks
This is written emphasized and bold and in a large font on today’s quote page of the thirty day Law of Attraction program.
And until an hour ago my day was just not my day, regardless of that I have been much happier lately, partly even to that thirty day Law of Attraction program. But today it didn’t really help me, on the contrary even. One of the assignments of the “Days of love” is to ask yourself “What do I like about this?” or “What is good about this?” with the people I met or meet today or the experiences I had or have today. And while in earlier “Days of love” this was OK with me, today it just pissed me off as it seemed there was nothing good in the people I met or the experiences I had. Things just seemed to suck today and it started with the service technicians who were checking our internet connection telling me that the wireless signal of our connection was not up to the current standards and that we should close the account?
What? Close the account for an internet connection that has worked for something like six years 99% of the time without any problems? And I/we kind of depend on that connection, so if it’s gone that would mean no proper internet. And what is happening with technology, progress? Yes, I know it’s wireless and things like trees can grow in between our antenna and the tower and things like that. But I also thought technology, especially wireless technology would improve a little, or actually a lot, in six years time, especially as six year time we were one of the first using that technology.
Anyhow, what is good about that? Can you imagine I had some difficulty finding something good about those technicians, who by the way are just contractors of our ISP or about them telling me they couldn’t fix the problem and that they suggested to me to just close the account.
But while writing now the good thing is maybe that this type of thing is something I do like to write about, I do want to write about and with ‘this type of thing’ I mean something like feeling powerless towards all those big companies, all those big organizations that all of us are dealing with. Actually this type of thing is even one of the things behind this site, one of the reasons I’m writing and keep writing to become popular so something can be done about ‘these things’. So maybe that’s the good thing I was looking for, a reason to write about this so we can do something about it. And I have written about it before, but I will keep writing about it until this has changed, until the world is a better place, until we found a way again to care about people, to care about customers and not treat them like, well, don’t know how to say.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m not against big companies, I’m not against procedures, I’m not against efficiency. All these things have brought us, you and me, humanity, all those good things from radio, TV, computers, all kinds of food, snacks, travel, ships, yes, internet and whatever you can think of that is around us, that we use, that we enjoy. And I’m seeing more and more how this all came to be and how much we as humanity have invested to make all of this possible. I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot lately, also as it is one of the ideas of Napoleon Hill as described in Think and Grow Rich in the chapter Organized Planning, sub chapter “The Capital Cornerstones of Our Lives”. And it’s indeed awesome what we have achieved as humanity and what is basically accessible to virtually anyone, yes, I think even to most people that are poor, that we consider poor. I mean, even most poor people in The Philippines, the country where I live and where there are still many really poor people, have a cellphone. And to me a cellphone and the network behind it is an awesome piece of, well, technology, infrastructure, equipment, organized planning, etc. And when I was young, in my teens, cellphones didn’t even exist. Yes, there were some radio type phones that could be put in cars for rich people, but they were very rare and very unique. And now virtually everybody has one. So that’s progress, progress of humanity (and yes, I know there are more types of progress than this type, but that’s another story for another chapter and another time).
And it goes back much further as I think decent roads are only from the twentieth century. Only one hundred years ago I guess there were not so many paved roads. And there were no cars, and certainly no planes, well the one from the Wright brothers maybe. So also, roads and cars or public transportation are available to everybody, and I think in this case literally everybody on the whole world must have used some kind of land transportation like at least a bus or so or a truck.
So yes, we came very far as humanity to create things that make life nicer, easier, more exciting, whatever name you want to give it. But some things seem to start coming at a cost I don’t like, and I’m not sure if that cost is only recent or if it’s already there longer than I think or know or can know. And the cost to me is something like ‘dehumanication’. As often I have the feeling it’s not about me anymore, it’s not about humans anymore, but the organization is more important than the human being. And I think that’s not right, although one could also reason that organizations or the higher levels of organization like road networks or cities are indeed ‘more’ than human beings. In my mind i am often thinking of the analogy that I am ‘more’ than the cells in my body.
But somehow I believe that is not true. Somehow I still believe that human beings are the highest level of consciousness that exists. And that the lower levels like cells and organs in the body are there to serve the human, the human body, the human consciousness. And that also the higher levels like all kinds of organizations and equipment and things like that are also support to serve the human and not the other way around.
And I don’t know exactly how we could turn this around as we all think things like call centers are efficient and that the way airlines operate are ‘efficient’. But if I see people suffer like not being able to get through, not being able to get the service they need I want to do something.
So maybe we can do something together. And maybe the first step is just awareness and that’s what I want to achieve with this post and one of the things I want to achieve with this site.
The last week or so I’ve seen several programs on TV, like on Discovery Channel and National Geographic what we have achieved as humanity, as humans. And the longer I think about it, the more stunned I am and also the smaller I feel. As how can one human imagine something like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (in 1937!) or something like flying to the moon in 1969. Imagine arranging things like that without computers, or with the computer technology, or the level of technology anyhow in the sixties for the moon program.