Thursday, September 15, 2005

Who Runs Your World?

Do I really have that much free time??!! Mmm … This was not done on office hours anyway :) … and I really liked the survey … It raised again these human diversity thoughts that I’ve been wondering about lately.

Here it is … BBC presented this program and launched an online survey for people to send their comments and opinions about who runs their worlds …

I’ve read the comments. But what’s more crazy than this is that I was not as much interested in answering the question myself as I was by the diversity of the answers! It's overwhelming! Note that more than 90% of the people who commented are from the UK; so the diversity is even within the same society.

So I’ve read them just to compare them and ponder on the differences between people … and when the idea of blo22ing the thought came across my mind I decided to sort them out (the comments) and tag them :) … Not that I care if it is gonna be read by anybody on The Blo2; but I found it interesting enough to me anyway.. So if you started reading and you decided it's boring already just press Back or Alt+F4, I don't mind.

All what’s after bulleted points is copied from the online survey. The headings are mine.


Me! … answer number#1 ! ... Ego proves the center of the universe!!

  • I run my life. I don't consider my government to hold any authority over me. Whatever power the government has over me is minor and truly not very significant in terms of what really is important in life.

  • I run my world! Everything I do in my life is my choice. I choose to go to work to earn money to pay my bills to keep on the right side of the law to respect my family and friends and to keep learning. As long as I have choice, I run my life!

  • I run my world, followed by money as a close second.

Media, Companies, Governments, and all those valid conspiracy theories:

  • The media runs a good portion of the world.
  • Companies like the major soft drinks manufacturers and petrochemical producers hold governments in the palm of their hand. Governments in turn keep us all firmly beneath their thumb or heel, depending on naive beliefs in freedom and democracy to gain compliance from an accepting majority.
  • The simple truth is that the corporations run the world.
  • Robert Murdoch and the Carlyle Group
  • International agencies (World Bank, IMF, etc.) or powerful foreign governments (US, EU) control the lives of most people on this planet.
    The multinational corporations do. Politicians have a very much peripheral influence in these modern times when everything is sacrificed to the goal of maximizing profits for the larger companies, their owners and shareholders, no matter what the cost to the environment or human quality of life is.

Money … and the Rich … a common answer

  • It's safe to say that money runs my world.
  • Money or lack of.
  • The world is run by the people with the most money
  • The wealthy throughout the world are controlling and choking the life out of humanity.

Family,Wife,Kids … another common answer:

  • It is my family.
  • Our wonderful three month old daughter, without a doubt.
  • A power-sharing pact between mum and girlfriend
  • I used to think it was me, then I got married and it was my wife, then my son was born and now it's him!

Sexes:

  • Right now I would have to say men. Women haven't really had an equal opportunity to influence the world such as man has. Still today men are continuing their dominance in the world.
  • Women, pure and simple. When I was a child my mother ruled me, and before I had my child my wife ruled me. Now my daughter rules me. As far as my memory of my family history goes, it was my grandmother who ruled my dad, and my other grandmother who ruled my mom and her dad.
  • The three 'm's: Men, money and media.
  • Thank god women don't rule the world.
  • Women obviously rule the world; it is clear from the number of men who do not realize that that they are doing a good job.

Nature … would make some sense these days:

  • Nature runs my world. I try to respect and adapt to the environment. Katrina shows that no matter how much we try to bend the environment to our needs, nature still has the last say.
  • Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, global warming and other natural disasters should make it clear that humans control over the conditions of their own existence is very limited

GOD!! ... Only ONE out of more than seventy answers !!

  • It is Jesus Christ my God.

Our own tragedies rule the world:

  • Long term illness coupled with intolerance from our so-called "society" seems to run my world.
  • My world is run by the nexus of corrupt bureaucracy, politicians and businessmen.
  • Three things run my world, the bills, my wife and my kids. As a middle class family the bills are always more than we can earn, but we survive with 2 full time jobs.
  • I think it's the lawyers and judges who run it. They hold power over everybody, bar none. A judge or a magistrate can order child support to the tune of half of your earned income; they can separate you from your child, and make you into a marginalized father and second class citizen all in a blink of an eye. And lawyers are, of course, their cohorts.

Fear, Fate, Hatred rule the world

  • Fear runs my world.
  • Chance, some would say fate, runs the world.
  • It seems as if hatred, greed and stupidity rule the world

Sarcasm rules the world!! :)

  • Isn't it a real pity that all the people who know how to run the world properly are just too busy cutting hair and driving taxis!
  • Sad as it seems, my 11-month-old yellow lab. My wife and I do not have any children (yet!) so we decided to give it a test run with a fur-kid. She basically runs the house and our lives. I never understood how people can be so obsessive about pets, until we got Buffy. We have become that annoying couple who can talk of nothing but "our little girl". We try not to, but I can understand, finally, how much more children truly rule parents lives.
  • This is actually a meaningless question.

3 comments:

Lilli said...

if i'd participated in this survey i'd say: money, power and human physical needs &desires... and very small percentage of the sense of doing the right thing.. which differs from one person to another, according to how he was brought up. so actually thr r no fixed measures for it

Lilli said...

sorry... i didn't understand the survey right.. it says who runs 'MY world'... but my answer was about what rules 'the world' now in general... not my world specifically...

Christa said...

I always keep on asking myself about what matters most to me… is it work? family? choir? luxurious life may be?? a lot of things come to my mind… and sometimes I don’t find a real answer, despite it’s very important to find an answer to this question to be able to set my priorities and take our right decisions! What Matters most to me is what rules my actions actually...

I wanted to share with you an article by Rick Warren that helped me answer this question! (Rick Warren is the writer of the famous Purpose Driven Life).


What Matters Most?


“Love means living the way God commanded us to live. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is this: Live a life of love.” (2 John 1:6, NCV)

Life is all about love.

Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us: “The whole Law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love others as you love yourself.” (Galatians 5:14, LB)
Learning to love unselfishly is not an easy task. That’s why we’re given a lifetime to learn it.
Of course, God wants us to love everyone, but he is particularly concerned that we learn to love others in his family.

Why does God insist that we give special love and attention to other believers?
Because God wants his family to be known for its love more than anything else. Jesus said our love for each other – not our doctrinal belief – is our greatest witness to the world.

He said, “Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (John 13:35, LB)

In heaven we will enjoy God’s family forever, but first we have some tough work to do here on earth to prepare ourselves for an eternity of loving. God trains us by giving us “family responsibilities,” and the foremost of these is to practice loving each other.

The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.

Point to ponder: Life is all about love – especially for those in God’s family.

What will you do about it: Practice being loving. Find a way to secretly serve someone in your church today. Don’t tell anyone about it except God.

Prayer: Ask God to help you make relationships your first priority.