Autonomy
Definition; - the right, or condition of self-government.
In our society, autonomy, is pretty much everything. The
right for everyone to have assay in all that effects them and in everything
they do. From a young age people are taught that their life is their life and
their life only. To an extent this is true. No longer is it working together to
get a better life for the community but work hard for yourself because it’s
your life after all, or is it? Think, think on whether your actions only effect
you and you alone or do they affect others?
Despite what we think and are taught, our actions, all our
actions, no matter what, have some effect on someone other than ourselves. Be
it big or small. This effect may not affect the person’s life much but
sometimes, that small effect may have a major impact that you’re not even aware
of. Even the actions we do that we think only effect ourselves affect others
who are close to us, even those who aren’t. An obvious example would be the topic
of suicide. When someone commits suicide, it firstly impacts those who were
around that person, the people they interacted with, they’re friends, family,
co-workers, classmates, that coffee shop worker who always served them. These people
will feel guilt if they were in a position to stop it, guilt because they didn’t
notice anything, sadness because they’ve just lost someone, and on some occasions
more guilt but this time because upon reflection they were the cause for the
tragic event. The suicide would then also add to the culture of
self-centredness, where we focus on ourselves and not others, where we don’t truly
deal with our problems, or seek help but rather rely on ourselves for
everything. We were not made to be self-reliant. We were made for community, to
rely on each other, to rely on God. This culture of autonomy is taking us away
from our nature of living in community where everyone helps each other. Both scientifically
and biblically this would have been the case of working together to ensure the
survival of humanity.
So what should we do? We should try and make sure our
actions are positive or at least have positive effects on those around us as we
aren’t the only ones in the world despite what we are led to believe. Our lives
aren’t only just about us, we are a community, and a community works together
for the greater good of everyone. Self-autonomy isn’t a part of it.
Here are some articles that I recently read
concerning ourselves in relation to everyone else. I hope they open your mind
to the topic and make you think and wonder as they did to me when I read them.
I hope that
this post is of some help, if not an eye opener to an issue that seriously
needs to be addressed. Love you all,
Ellah xx
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