Terminal blindness

OK, what can any one of us really do? It's a legitimate question, and it deserves an honest answer: not a lot ... if it's only about us individually. Most of the problems with which we are confronted these days are bigger than any one of us, but they are not bigger than all of us. And therein lies the rub.

In order to do certain things ... big things, for sure ... we need to get together and work together with others. We have to give up just a little part of ourselves in order to get along with and cooperate with others. This is the real secret to success. Nobody -- regardless of what the propagandists may tell you -- makes it on his or her own. Everybody had help, everybody got support, everybody who ever became anybody became that somebody because others helped them get there. The fact of the matter is that without others, we are nothing. But that's the lie we've chosen to live.

It never ceases to amaze me how selectively blind we are. We love to just blot out things that we don't want to fit. It was Steve Jobs who made Apple, even though thousands of folks like you and me did all the right things to make him successful. It was Edison who invented the light bulb, even though he had tens of assistants working with him day and night. It was ... well, the list goes on and on. What applies in small, applies in the world at large as well.

The easiest examples to find are in the area of business and economics because this is where we have decided to place our focus any way. There it is the individual who climbs to the top and most of them will be damned if they're taking anyone with them. When things go awry in the neighborhood, like after a natural disaster, it is the community who binds together to make sure things work again. That's what a society is about.

It is not too late to decide, once again, that the society is more important than the economy. These are not mutually exclusive choices, rather it is simply a matter of priorities. If we choose to remain selectively blind to the fact that together we are capable of much more -- and much more economically -- than if only a few get all the credit, we can turn from the road to perdition and head off somewhere else. If not, we'll just continue down the road we're on, and our blindness will become terminal.