Faith in Humanity
Gandhi said it best in his quote, “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” This is one of my favorite quotes; to me it means that no matter what bad things come into this world it does not make this world an awful place. It reminds me to stay focused on the good of humanity, as it outweighs all the awful, terrible and disturbing things humans have or can do. I think this quote compares the whole ocean to the entirety of humanity. As a few drops of dirty water have no measurable impact on the cleanliness of the ocean, neither does a few bad people corrupt the fullness of humanity. However, in a world that has little faith in humanity, I hope to define what humanity means to me, show how I have faith in humanity and describe ways to put faith in humanity to action.
To have faith in humanity I first have to have faith in myself, and understand my own beliefs. Asking me to define what faith in humanity is, it is trusting myself, as well as the rest of society to make something of this world. It is believing that somehow that the chaos of this world will be resolved ahead of us. I try my hardest to live out what I have been taught since I was a little girl; to have love for the hurting and help the ones in need. I have realized that the more I help the better I feel, however, I cannot give up. Yes, I might get discouraged because I do not see the results right away, but if I just keep on helping and doing, what I know is best I will see the result. The actions I am doing are either good or bad; they are seen and watched by others. I can either show good actions in helping, which can result in others helping or I, can show bad action in ignoring, which also can result in others not helping. As a leader of a campus ministry at UAFS, I have seen that the actions I show toward the students are going to shape how they turn out to be when they finish college. If I am not friendly, helpful, kind, and positive they are not going to be. If I do not teach them how to be all these things, how can I expect them to be if I am not to them? In today’s world, kids are taught not to talk to strangers and to let other more experienced people help the ones that might be in trouble. Yes, I believe we are living in a day and age where helping others is becoming harder, but I also think we should teach our children what the Bible says and what I have been taught: to be the light in a dark world.
Gerda Weissmann expressed her faith in humanity in an excerpt from her story. She did this by explaining why Jews had not fought or rebelled against the Nazis during the Holocaust. They did not fight back because the unthinkable things that were happening astonished them. The Jews just could not believe that humanity was capable of having so much hatred within itself and destroying its own people. You would think they would give up, lose their faith and trust in humans. However, they chose to trust and not interfere. Due Gerda Weissmann’s story I come to the question do I really have faith in humanity. This is a question I really do not know how to answer. In today’s world, I really do not have much trust in what is happening. It is very hard to believe humanity can resolve the crazy things that are happening. Do I believe there is humanity in this world? Yes, I think there are some out there that are doing all they can to help the hurting of this world. Are we every going to live in that perfect world where there are no attacks over money, religion, or power? No, from the beginning of time the Bible talks about others killing others for different things. Although I do not have confidence in humanity fixing the world, I do have confidence in humanity to change its focus. I think we should change our values of power, authority, equality and unity. I believe we should change our values of money and wealth to pride in what one person has the