Should we try to change the world?

Question from the Internet:

“Is it wrong that I genuinely think that if the world is rotten we should just let it rot because we can’t do anything to fix the world mainly because we can’t control what other people do?”

I guess it is ok to think like that, as long as we think that the world is rotten around us, and we are powerless to do anything against it.

But when we start to see and understand that it is not the world around us, it is not other people that are rotten, but our own nature and our own approach to reality, then everything changes.

According to our inherently self-serving, self-justifying, egocentric and subjective nature and worldview, we constantly see a broken world around us with “evil” people doing bad things. And our ego does everything in its power to keep justifying itself, while blaming everybody and everything else for the worsening situation of the world.

But we do not see the world as it is. We see the world through our egocentric, subjective and individualistic filters. We see our own qualities reflected onto others and the world, as if we were surrounded by nyriads of mirrors, showing us who we are through others.

This is not an easy recognition, we instinctively run away from it. After all, we are ready to do anything except to critically assess and to change ourselves.

But when we have already recognized that the first and only thing we need to change in the world is our own viewpoint and attitude, then we will quickly change our standpoint and do everything in order to improve the world and the live we live – by purposefully and methodically changing ourselves.