A Personal Thought

It’s my birthday as I write this blog – December 9. I suppose that’s why I’m thinking so much about the past today. And the future. Like many of us, I sometimes have to fight a tendency to get nostalgic and a birthday gives me a good excuse to smile, and maybe feel a little wistful, about what’s passed. But beyond that surface sentiment, more than anything else, I’m hopeful today. I’m personally hopeful as an individual, as I think most people in our society have good reason to be. And even more, I’m hopeful for humanity as a whole, all of us.

It’s true that, as I look around, I seem to see a lot of restless men and women. Many of us appear discontented, as if looking for something. But that can be a good thing, especially if what we’re looking for is almost within our grasp. Because looking around also makes me think that humanity is on the threshhold of something important: real self-discovery for the first time – a more meaningful knowledge than ever before about how and why we function as we do. I’m not talking here about religious or mystical concepts that can’t be tested in reality. I’m talking about science. We are discovering more of the underlying principles that determine human behavior, just as we know something of the basic principles that determine the behavior of stars and planets. I believe that a deeper and deeper understanding of human psychology will lead us inevitably to new ways of dealing with issues of physical health, for example, and new approaches to education and child rearing. As the new scientific knowledge of the mind trickles down to the everyday woman and man and child, we will each learn better methods for guiding our lives in a positive direction – and begin to view this effort as our responsibility. That’s what I’m thinking about today. Just a personal, hopeful thought I wanted to share as I look toward the next year of my life.