This new year, we should resolve to create long-term changes
A Forbes article entitled, ”Just 8% of People Achieve Their New Year’s Resolutions. Here’s How They Do It,” from Jan. 1, 2013, claimed that while almost 40 percent of Americans make a New Year’s resolution every year, a meager eight percent of them actually keep it throughout the entire year.
Considering this dismal fact, it is not surprising that many people seem to have little faith that our world can improve at all, given that so few of us obtain the resolve to achieve our desired goals.
Despite our short attention spans, in looking to the upcoming year, it is important to be reminded of our values as a nation and as members of the international community, in order to foster a better world for the future.
Recently, according to a Dec. 2 article from The Guardian entitled, ”Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announce baby girl – and $45bn charity initiative,”, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have vowed to donate 99 percent of their Facebook shares, valued at $45 billion, for the purpose of improving the future.
“Our society has an obligation to invest now to improve the lives of all those coming into this world, not just those already here,” Zuckerberg said.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has a valuable lesson to teach the world. People of the world could stand to learn how to work for the good of others, rather than the good of themselves.
Politicians often propose changes that have immediate impacts, in order to prove to the public that things are actually getting done. But we should instead demand long-term change that will solve our world’s complex problems.
The ideology of the American dream is a selfish one. People should live with the purpose of leaving a legacy that will help future generations, rather than for the sake of personal gain or accolades that become meaningless after death.
As the Greek proverb goes, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
The year 2016 should be the year the world resolves to take the initiative to plant something that has the ability to outlast the current generation.
