How To Change The Future In One Easy Lesson

If you knew that you could do one simple thing to save lives and redirect the course of the future to a safer and more beneficial path, would you?


Most people would get past the "absolutely" and ask, how?


I'll give you a simple (but not necessarily easy) answer, but I'm not counting on action out of anyone who hears it.


History tells us that the inaction of good people often leads to the death of thousands and maybe millions, with uncountable cost in other assets vital to daily quality life. Hitler was appeased by Chamberlain. Hitler survived at least one assasination attempt, and a successful one early in his infamous life may have spared the world a war, and altered how nations and their politics exist.


That's just one example.


Stephen King wrote an entire novel examining what could happen if President Kennedy had lived. This is no spoiler alert; you can guess that he concluded that life around the world became miserable and depressing for many.


That sort of turns people off to the idea that they can do something that may actually benefit the living in future years. Well, I guess that's his job as a legendary novelist.


What turns his novel into an escapist what-if story is the fact that people around the world are making real-life decisions that--with wisdom and sound judgement--save many lives and improve the lot of those who go after us, only his characters change history to do so. We don't have that option, but ours is more assured.


Jail is supposed to correct criminal behavior. War is supposed to stop whole nations from aggression and bring them into some sort of peaceful circle of international brotherhood.


Supposed to.


You can think of examples where the normal structures of law enforcement and international peacekeeping don't quite have the consequences the peaceful innocent would like to see.


But there is another way.


It, too, is not perfect, but the saving of lives and human assets cannot be measured. Because, obviously, we can never go into the future and see how horrible things could be.


If the world had an idea what Hitler was going to do--really knew--do you think someone, one person, could have done something, and Hitler would have been a footnote?


Probably.


That kind of future is largely unknowable--unless you're already immersed in a war... and then you can roughly guess. Maybe you can also guess if you know for sure that your neighborhood violent criminal is taken out of society in some way, through incarceration or misadventure.


Many people bet on keeping the future on a safe and peaceful path, every day.


When good people do something to bet that their actions will stop violence, prevent trouble, keep life peaceful, they're making the kind of bet that most would agree with.


It's quiet, barely noticed if at all. Some would call it vigilante justice, but if it's as simple as Momma punishing little Hitler for some childhood indiscretion, or the serial armed intrusions suddenly ending, most people of civility would have a difficult time questioning the method.


We all just want peace.


We all just want safety and security.


We all just want the violent to stop.


How that happens needs to be the worry of the violent.


The pressure should be all on them.