Work

Some people work to live. Others live to work.

There is a need for enough money to pay the bills, to provide food, clothing, housing, medical care and education for ourselves and our families. Beyond that some people have an ego to feed that requires much more money. These people work to live in as comfortable a way as they know how.

Others have a need to work that goes beyond providing these creature comforts. They find their work is a creative outlet, or a way to achieve and use power, or they find it to be an escape that releases them from social, familial and personal pressures of doing anything else. It always sounds valid and noble to "have to work."

Although some of these reasons seem more valid to me than others and some feel like a passive aggressive slap in the face, we should be able to live the way we want without apology as long as it does not hurt anyone else.

I just respect people more when they are forthright and honest.

Most of us know when we are being lied to, or put off even when we don't talk about it. So many problems arise because of unspoken, underlying truths that (for some reason) we pretend don't exist.

Allowing children to speak the truth, encouraging them to both see it and express it in tactful, clear ways might be one of the most important gifts we could give this world.

Imagine a world where people really are equal as long as they do no harm. I think it would redefine harm. Active, or passive, if your actions hurt other people then an intervention would follow and it wouldn't end until everyone felt satisfied.

Idealistic. This form of keeping order would be time consuming and difficult. Punishment would cease to exist in the way we know it. Instead tolerance would be the law and communities might be divided in different ways, including places for the physically dangerous.

It would not be a utopia because truth is the hardest taskmaster of all, but I think it might be more peaceful.