Established institutions; be they business, government or otherwise; are naturally conservative, have an inherent inertia, and are resistant to change. If you own the process and it always worked for you, why change? You might officially subscribe to reengineering, reinvention, downsizing, or whatever other latest management craze that's hitting the charts, but way down deep, you know that you and your ways will endure.

It is not true that cows become man-eaters once they taste meat. It's time we again accepted our bovine friends and forgot those few unpleasant episodes.

Some people just can't be helped.
Some folks enjoy their misery and anger too much. They wallow in their inferiority or superiority. Happiness and optimism are weaknesses to them. Chaos is joy. Don't get too close or you might catch it.

Never look under the bed, or behind the nightstand, in a hotel room. Some things you just don't want to know.

Interest in sports, or lack of it, is genetic.
If Dad and Grandpa knew your team's statistics over decades, then you're most likely an Armchair Jock, too.

We cannot avoid all risks
Even though we are facing a fraction of the risks faced by our ancestors, we are becoming much too tentative and absorbed by the minuscule and improbable. Risks can be assessed and predicted, and relatively few need to worry us or cause us to change our ways.

The true efficiencies of any society, organization or institution; rather than of scale; are in the smallest possible grouping of involved and participating individuals.

Motivating and nurturing groups such as the family, tribe, ghetto, craft guild, work groups, parent-teacher organizations, neighborhood watches, schools, religious congregations, and activist/charitable organizations are, as Willis Harman said, "an organism of autonomous units, united in a common purpose." Their relatively small size and proximity to the individual make such small groupings much more adaptable, focused, coordinated, productive and decisive than the large organizations or institutions of which they may be a part.

We continuously are evaluating and analyzing ourselves, often with the media's assistance. We, as a people, will never accept the status quo and will always strive to improve ourselves politically, culturally and morally. That's how society evolves.

Did you ever stand between two mirrors and it looked as if there were a thousand of you? That's really something, isn't it? You know?

Even our causes are evolving.
In past centuries, most causes involved very elemental needs such as food, shelter, sanitation and health; or the basic rights to worship, vote, speak and live as one wished. As these basic needs and rights were gradually addressed by increasingly enlightened nations, the focus shifted to more specific and less elemental areas such as rights of employment, public housing, health care, compensation, sexual orientation, workplace safety, the environment, animals, etc. This reflects Maslow's Hierarchy Prepotency in which we are motivated by an ascending series of needs (i.e. physiological, safety, love, esteem and self actualization), and that once the lower (prepotent) needs have been satisfied, they will be supplanted by the higher needs as motives for behavior. This indicates an improving existence for most of us, more involvement by many of us, and an ever expanding realization that we are all connected; and that helping even the few moves all of us forward.

We should periodically ask ourselves:
What about our World or Society frustrates, exhilarates, inspires or challenges me?
Over what issue am I or could I be most passionate and involved?
What do I stand for?
What is my purpose for existence? Do I just take up space?
Whom would I pattern my life after?
What are my dreams and deepest hopes?
After I'm gone, what have I done that will leave some mark, will make some difference, or will bring someone happiness? What will my descendants think of me?
What will my story be? What story would I like my life to tell?
What limits me? How can I change that?
What are my prejudices? How were they formed? How can they be changed?
Who or what group deserves my greatest sympathy? Who needs help the most?
If it were in my power, what would I most want to change?
What have I done in the past year (5 years? decade?) to improve myself, to move forward, to help others?

Try this. Go downtown to one of those uppity office towers, put your mouth up against the glass, and be an algae eater. What better way to satisfy your dormant anti-social and revolutionary instincts?