Have humans always been so selfish or is humanity becoming more selfish with time?
This is a question that has been plaguing me for some time now, and seeing the bad things that happen constantly around us, it is not surprising to think of how day by day human beings are becoming worse and worse.
From wars to incompetent politicians, to the rapidly deteriorating civil situation in multiple countries, oppression, rising number of crimes and so much more is brought to our TV and phone screens by news outlets across the world.
One has to wonder why exactly is the daily face of humanity becoming so dark. And is that truly what the reality is or just what the media opts to show us?
Since we have also seen that negative news is given much more attention than positive. Thus it makes more than enough sense that the TRP hungry media channels will choose to show the bad instead of giving airtime to the positive things happening around us.
When it comes to noticing our surroundings, most of the time we mainly focus on the negative and bad things that happen around us.
People often choose to overlook the positive things happening around us mainly because it is not reported as heavily as the negative news is.
But with the year-end coming near, let us take a minute and note some of the positive things that happened around us:
1. Flood Brought Kindness:
During the heavy flooding that Chennai saw early in December, we truly got to see the real face of humanity with people opening their doors and wallets to help out the people of the city.
People across Chennai posted their addresses online and offered to share food and shelter with anyone who was in need of it. Rescue teams were made, malls and theatres were opened to give shelter to large groups of people.
This goes to show that when the times comes, human beings are not afraid to let go of previous prejudices and offer help where need be.
2. The While Helmets Saviours of Syria:
These 3,000 civilians who built the Syrian Civil Defence team have gotten international recognition for saving more than 60,000 people counting from 2014 till now. These people are ordinary teachers, builders, plumbers, engineers, and such who have taken it upon themselves, and without any kind of special training whatsoever, to save the people of Syria from the war waging upon them.
The reason they are called ‘white helmets’ is because of the colour of the helmets they wear which make them easy to recognize and see in the all the chaos happening.
They were even nominated for the 2016 Nobel Prize for their outstanding work.
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3. Blind IAS Officer Becomes An Example:
Aman Gupta, an IAS officer from the 2013 batch is about 90% blind due to a juvenile macular degeneration, which has no known cure.
But over time and with enough determination, and even after failing to clear the UPSC the first time, he did not give up and eventually got a 57 ranking the second time around.
Currently, he holds the position of director (personnel), additional director (education) and secretary to the SDMC commissioner as told in a report by Economic Times.
These are very important positions and it truly shows that enough focus one can accomplish anything.
4. People Opting Out Of The Big Indian Wedding:
Instead of going for the big Indian wedding, people are going for small weddings or court marriages, and opting to give the money collected to adopting old age homes, feeding kids at a shelter or even adopting young kids who are in need of good homes.
5. The Extensive Support To The Muslim Community In US:
The Trump travel ban that came out in January this year truly solidified the anti-Muslim policy of his. But instead of people cheering, a large majority of them stood up to the injustice of it all and protested day and night to get it overturned.
People formed large groups and rallied outside every single place of Trump’s, be it the White House in DC, the Trump Towers in New York and more.
However, one thing I noticed for a lot of such incidents is that people only show this positive and humane side of theirs in times of emergency and violence. When the limit has been reached and the evil is too much, only then people open their eyes to help out the victims around them.
In 2018, it would be really great to see if such empathy and kindness can be seen in everyday life too, without things going so bad in the first place.
Image Credits: Google Images
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