Can Humanity Do Better?

I’m losing faith in humanity and I don’t want to.

Yesterday, I got locked out of the house with my 80 pound golden retriever who just had ACL surgery and could barely walk. I didn’t have my phone with me and my daughter who is cognitively, physically and medically challenged was inside. I knew she would be ok for a few minutes but not for a few hours. Panic started to set in while I tried to remain calm. “Think…what can you do?”

I remembered that I could get in by climbing from our neighbor’s balcony to ours and hoped one of the doors to our balcony was unlocked. I knocked on the neighbors door. “Who is it?” he asked through the door. “It’s your neighbor, I’m locked out of my place and my daughter is in there all alone,” I replied. “Can I climb over your balcony to get in?” His response. “Now’s not a good time.” “Ok” I said and walked back to my door as my panic intensified.

I ended up breaking down the door and found my daughter sitting on the couch entertaining herself. I was so relieved.

A short while later, it hit me hard…what happened to humanity? How have we gone so far in the direction of now’s not a good time to help our fellow humans?

I sat in this space for a while. It made me feel defeated. It would be easy to give up on my dreams that humanity can do better. I know that I couldn’t live with myself if I did. I’ve spent years trying to understand why we live in so much fear, both conscious and unconscious, and why we forgot how to be good humans. The Truth is, these fears keep us seeing our world through a lens of lack and cause us to avoid experiencing uncomfortable feelings when we see someone in need of a helping hand. This in turn causes us to act in selfish ways and close our eyes to the struggles of others so we can survive. Maybe this is where my neighbor is…I don’t know. He’s usually very friendly when our paths cross. What I do know is that I’m never going to stop inviting humanity to do better and to be better. I’m never going to stop offering tools to help people see what’s possible through a non-fear lens and I’m never going to lose faith in humanity. I know we can do better and be better. We just might not know how.