How to Solve All the World’s Problems

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”

So said Gandhi. But I don’t think he expressed it quite right. I think it’s more accurate that the missing link is the difference between what we do and what we profess to believe. Blatant inconsistency, not mere inaction, is our true Achilles’ heel.

I watched a movie the other night that portrayed waterboarding and other forms of torture by American troops. It made my skin crawl.

But then it struck me as odd that I’m okay with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed roughly 250,000 people in a split second, with incalculable long-term effects. How does the moral equation somehow change when I’m looking someone in the eyes, versus pushing a red button from afar?

I pondered all the ways I’m inconsistent in my life, how easily I justify wrongdoing…

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