To Make Progress, Stop Making Unnecessary Problems

Stress has been my portion, especially for the last few days. But also too often in the past there has been unnecessary, unproductive stress that I couldn't do much about. I think Thoreau was right about the whole Walden attitude.

There are attitudes some people have that seem to be keeping humanity from moving forward, away from slavery and duress. For example I heard someone say that she worked hard and she wished the same for her children, not better. I heard someone pose the question rhetorically, "Why should [starving children abroad] be exempt from the law of starvation?" (Obviously, the answer is that, the sooner the most vulnerable people are freed from starvation, poverty, slavery and duress, the sooner the rest of us will be!) I heard someone say that his father had not shared his fortune with him, in hopes that he would learn how to make his own fortune. That family is poised to stagnate. The energy wherewith the son will now pull himself up by his bootstraps (or die trying) could have been used to help humanity move forward -- with the help of a substantial amount of money, I might add. There are too many real problems in this world for people to go around inventing problems and hurdles for one another.