Things under our control

I added the following goal to the TeamHuman.org goals list on the FAQ page:

"Focus on the threats to our collective well-being that are most readily under our control as individuals."

There are many complex problems we face as a community/nation/world that have no quick/easy/obvious solutions and require the coordinated actions of many individuals from different cultures or countries working over a long period of time. We are also engaged in R&D activities to develop technologies or to better understand how the natural world works and more effectively manipulate it. These activities are extremely important, but require long-term funding and teams of individuals with special training.

In the meantime, let's make sure we don't neglect the problem areas that we have more control over as individuals and are comparatively easier to address than these more complex problems. Progress on these more readily controlled problem areas could even contribute toward progress on the larger, more complex problems.

This goal has some of the same flavor as the Serenity Prayer, but that prayer is more black-and-white: it's view is that you can either change something or you can't. When we look at the threats to humanity's well being, many are in principle solvable through human action, but it's just a matter of degree. There is a continuum of problem difficulty, with some problems being more easily addressable by people working individually and some requiring the coordinated, integrated activities of many people over longer time periods.

So what are some examples of problems or threats to humanity that are addressable via things that are more readily under our individual control? To get a handle on this, it's useful to consider what are the things over which we have the most control as individuals. Here's a start:

• Food/diet - unless we rely on others to feed us, we have ultimate power over what goes into our mouths.
• Exercise - unless we are physically incapacitated or injured, we control our activity level.
• Drugs (including smoking) - if one has the will, there are strategies to deal even with the most addictive substances.
• Spending money - where and what we purchase things.
• Spending time - what we choose to do on our own time.
• Attitude - how we mentally react to events in the world around us.
• Contacts - who we choose to communicate/interact with.
• Kids - well, we like to think we have some degree of control over them...

The food and exercise items have major impact on our health as individuals and collectively on the stress it can create on our national health care system, as I discussed on the about page.

[This is a work in progress. Stay tuned for more.]