You are wondering “Why does peace need rules?” An excellent question. Isn’t it interesting, though, that we have rules of war – in fact there is a global set of rules which we expect every culture, nation, society, and tribe to follow. They are spelled out in the Geneva Conventions, written in 1929 and ratified after the 2nd World war in 1949. So why not rules for peace?
Of course the first rule of peace is a rule that is likewise adopted by virtually every culture and religion worldwide –The Golden Rule. I wonder if human life would be different today if, for every decision and action (by leaders, CEO’s, presidents, and you and I), we/they were required to explain how they applied this universal rule.
The next rule of peace is the Hippocratic Oath. This is a biggie – people do lots of things and make lots of choices for a variety of reasons (some altruistic, some not), but when it comes to our health we all-of-a-sudden get serious. This Oath says “Do no harm.” If your choice will do any harm; or if it might do har;, or if you don’t know for sure if it might do harm, either now or in the future – DON’T DO IT!! You say “If we did that, 70% of the actions and decisions and choices wouldn’t get done.” My response: That’s not a bad thing – IT’S A GOOD THING! Modern humans are addicted to materialism, compulsive busy-ness, the need to be constantly moving, adding, changing things. The result: a world that is so complex that no one knows what is going on – AND THAT’S DANGEROUS – VERY DANGEROUS.
The third rule, thanks to Star Trek, is the Prime Directive, which tells us to NEVER interfere with the progress, evolution, growth of another. The applies to another people, another culture, another person. The point is – You work on your growth, and let others own theirs. The west has a history of “helping” others who they deem to be less developed. Examples are Africa and the Middle East. In both cases, the west has gone so far as to carve up whole continents, creating nations with names and boundaries. Then we are surprised when the people thus manipulated disdain these boundaries, because they were imposed on them by someone else (contrast that to the United States, where we are proud that we won and fashioned our own country and rules).
Why don’t we adopt these rules of peace? Is it because we’d rather be “right” and superior than be happy, safe, and peaceful? Is our pride and power and ego that important? The world is polarized around hate – east against west, Muslims against Christians, Catholics against protestants, liberals against conservatives, blacks vs whites, women against men. The common thread here is – focus on the differences. What if we focused on the 99% of our humanity that is exactly the same, no matter what part of the world we live in? What if, instead of focusing on our differences, we embraced our common vision, goals, desires for happy, prosperous, safe, productive lives.
If peace sounds attractive to you, come to our website: www.AReturnToPeace.com. With your input, we will create a vision for peace that is so attractive that people in every corner of the globe will want it for their lives.
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