The power of believing.

 

 The power of believing.

The teacher in school gave us a form to take home for parents to sign to allow us to take swimming lessons. My class was ecstatic, and we all talked about nothing else but swimming. The teacher also told us it was a life skill and that many people have been saved from drowning since the Red Cross developed a learn to swim program. She also explained how swimming is one of the best physical exercises suitable even for people with health problems. I was sold on the idea and gave my mom the form. She put it away……………

I asked her if I will be allowed to go with my friends and she said no. My world crumbled in front of my eyes. Why mom? I said with tears choking me and she said. When I was young, I went playing on the frozen river and fell through the ice. Some people saved me, but it was the most horrible thing that happened to me. I am scared especially about you son since you have medical problems and you are not very strong.

I am strong mom I cried and swimming makes you stronger. I don’t want to risk losing you she said. But if I know how to swim, I will be able to save myself if… and she replied, sorry son, I don’t BELIEVE your teacher and I don’t trust some young lifeguard to watch you properly. My class went, and I stayed in the school office doing some boring homework instead of swimming.

It wasn’t until I was 18 when I could go learn how to swim without my parents’ permission, and I did. I BELIEVED my teacher. Two years later I was a lifeguard, had the highest swimming qualifications, and made recreation my career choice. My body responded, and I became much healthier than I ever was. It taught me that belief can be good but also can be terrible.

I was born in the cradle of the most popular religious beliefs, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I was young when I realized that those were BELIEFS, and often the only difference between them was what people believed. Yet being a child of the second half of the twentieth century, I soon discovered that there was something that we all had to believe the same and that was science. We base science on proven facts and disputes are solved by proving things that could be repeatedly proven and peer-reviewed.

I am a great proponent of faith and beliefs and know the significant role they play in human destiny. What people believe determines what happens to us in life. However, it has to be verifiable, and not make-believe theory. One can’t just say I believe and it will materialize.

I watch the people who see folks dying obviously from a communicable disease and say that they don’t believe it. Their BELIEF is as good as murder. They also happen to be a group that is less affected by the particular virus for the time being. I see folks fighting against wearing protective masks and refusing the hard-earned vaccine. They BELIEVE it is going to change their DNA, or that microchips embedded in it will make them lose their imagined freedom. Their actions directly cause the deaths of the elders who built a beautiful world for them, but they don’t care.

Others are ignoring an immense body of accumulated evidence that the earth is warming up thanks to the amount of carbon we inject into the air. Instead of making an effort to stop it, they personally benefit from inventing ways to delay action. Again, selfish reasons dictate their BELIEFS. Others yet advocate building more superweapons and invest in companies that manufacture the mega killing machines.

The worst of all are the enemies from within who pose as investors and skim most profits and benefits from the productivity of the low-paid workers who produce wealth. Those watch essential workers live in objective poverty and convince them with targeted marketing to vote against their own interests. We are used to seeing a few collect millions enjoying food provided by many others who earn starvation wages. We BELIEVE that the lucky few work harder or are smarter in some ways. We don’t BELIEVE that farmers, ranchers, servers, and cashiers work hard or have important qualities. Well, science reveals that there is no physical difference between the lucky and the poor.

People don’t choose where they are born nor the colour of their skin or the social standing of birth families. Some of us choose to be moral while others don’t. Some choose to help others and others to take advantage of the less lucky. That depends upon what we BELIEVE.

Some chose to work towards making the world a better place for most or all, while others BELIEVE that caring for others is a weakness. Many BELIEVE that they were born into privileges prepared for them by their ancestors. Others KNOW that their place in the world was taken away from them and with it all its resources. Some First Nations still dispute the fact that natural resources should belong to Her Majesty instead of to them.

The argument is that the original people in most places didn’t develop the resources. Mind you, those who now own resources often hired others to develop them. Anyone can do that, but mostly they need a powerful army to take it over. Is taking what you can by strength legal? Depends on who is making the laws. Even more, depends on what we BELIEVE.

I know that what I BELIEVE will not change the world. Some will call me a dreamer. Yet I BELIEVE that if enough people will change their BELIEFS, we may yet have a better world, preserve what is most beautiful, and together will end wars, help all the children, make life wonderful for the hard-working mothers, and whatever else we can dream of.

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