There are many people who are of the opinion that the only thing that you can change – or the only thing that you can control – is yourself. It is time that this opinion be seriously addressed.
Sometimes the problem is with oneself; sometimes the problem is outside oneself. In most cases it is both. Me working on myself will make me a better person, but it will not solve global warming or federal debt.
The world does not stop existing because you focus on yourself. The problems of the world continue whether or not you work on yourself. A person with enough discernment to see such problems should not be focusing only on improving himself. He should be using this discernment to confront the problems of the world.
As for myself, I very much do work on myself. I do 3 hours of exercise a day. I do yoga and jujitsu. I have a relationship with Christ. That does not keep me from having useful original thought on social and political issues.
Is self the only thing that you can change? People change all sorts of things all the time. Some of these changes are for the better and others are for the worse. Sometimes people seeking to change things come from a right place, at others from a wrong place. If you have the discernment to see a problem, then you should be addressing it. You should not be changing yourself to become more like those who caused the problem.
Of course even from people such as the ones who have caused the problem, there are things to learn. People develop wisdom and useful knowledge all the time. I have found wisdom in all sorts of unexpected places, such as the inner city and rural Australia. Even in religions that have minimal logical justification do we find things of value, and failing to consider these things impoverishes one’s experience of the world.
Of course so does the course of action taken by many in these religions: That of seeing as a work of Satan any attainment of wisdom that is done outside the religion. That, again, fails to avail to people of major sources of wisdom and knowledge. Both in those who see religion and spirituality as irrational or stupid and those who see science and other religions as incompatible with Christianity, we see an artificial blindness in which they fail to consider vast amounts of wisdom. And that impoverishes their understanding of the world.
Of course there will be many people who want to change the world for wrong reasons. But there are others who come from right considerations as well. I am not Adolf Hitler. I do not seek to rule anyone and I do not seek to kill anyone. I want to see two things accomplished in my life time. One is a golden age, comparable to Italian Renaissance or 1920s America, consisting of technological business boom and a cultural blossoming. And the other is nature and civilization coexisting peacefully side by side, with progress to better technologies that do more to benefit humanity than it does to harm nature. Both of these are good goals, and ones that would benefit many people if achieved.
So here am I with a full solution: Improve both self and the world. And make the good that is in you matter in the world as much as you get it to matter in yourself.