This is another wise quote from Gandhi about changing ourselves to change the world. He must have been really into that. After all, he also said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Or did he? Actually, he didn’t. What Gandhi said was:
“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. … We need not wait to see what others do.”
In truth, Gandhi is really speaking of cause and effect. If we are different, by definition everything will interact with us differently. That is a change in the world. And yet, as Brian Norton pointed out in an Op-Ed piece he wrote for the NY Times several years ago,
“Gandhi is telling us that personal and social transformation go hand in hand, but there is no suggestion in his words that personal transformation is enough. In fact, for Gandhi, the struggle to bring about a better world involved not only stringent self-denial and rigorous adherence to the philosophy of nonviolence; it also involved a steady awareness that one person, alone, can’t change anything, an awareness that unjust authority can be overturned only by great numbers of people working together with discipline and persistence.”
Not as nice or sugarcoated as “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” but definitely more realistic. And we need that. If we are going to reclaim balance in our world, I think we need to realize that, not only do we have to change ourselves, we have to reach out and help others understand the need for change and embrace that change. Never easy, but supremely important these days. I’m up for it, what about you?
Seek Balance: What one thing could you change about yourself that might create more balance in your life? Can you share that with someone else?
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