In my last post, I tried to apply a principle from the philosopher Immanuel Kant to everyday life to examine a way to change the world. This began with an inward change. The change has to come inside of us. The only person you can control and change is yourself.
Brian Tracy, when teaching on success, almost always begins his argument by talking about the Law of Cause and Effect. He opens his book Flight Plan: The Real Secrets of Success with the following statement:
Perhaps the greatest discovery in human history—the foundation principle of religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology—is that thoughts are causes and conditions are effects This means you create your reality.[1]
He goes on to discuss a similar law that he calls the Law of Correspondence: “Your outer world corresponds to your inner world.”[2] This is much like Christ’s teachings on the Tree and the Fruit which states that if a tree is good the fruit it produces will be good. Gandhi also recognized this when he told us to “become the change we want to see in the world.”
With that being said, the first thing that a I must do to undertake an attempt to change the world is change myself and how I look at the world. This brings us to the second maxim of Kant’s Categorical Imperative: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end.”[3]
This statement challenges the way we look at other people. We are to see others as an end in themselves and not a mean to our ends. What does that mean? Basically, we aren’t to see people as ways to get what we want, but as valuable in and of themselves. At first glance, most of us would read this and say, “I don’t use people.” But a deeper examination would show that we all unknowingly do this. Do you ever stop to learn about people who serve you on a daily basis? Do you ever treat a cashier or waiter poorly because you are impatient and they are taking too long following through with your transaction? This is something that I think most are guilty of—myself included.
This is also something that is done with those who have jobs that go unnoticed—i.e. cleaning staff, busboys, etc. I’ve heard it said by many that you can tell a lot about a person based on how they treat people in the service sector.
This principle makes us pause and think about the other person who is scanning our groceries. It really is a Golden Rule exercise when you stop to think about who this person really is. John Maxwell talks about learning a person’s story. Do we really see other people as people who have a story. The guy on the side of the road selling the Contributer has a story, and he may need to tell it to someone. The cashier at Kroger® also has a story.
If we all stopped and treated others in a way that does not make them feel like an object that will either contribute to or hinder our ability to check items off of our to-do list, then the world will be a better place.
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