Thought of the Day
“Growth for the sake of growth
is the ideology of the cancer cell.”
As long as I can remember I have heard the term “You can’t stop progress.” I have always thought this a bit self-serving and silly. Why, exactly is progress so important? Why are we never satisfied with things as they are? And why are we constantly looking for change?
These questions have perplexed me all my life. My life is richer not because of the things I own, the size of my bank account, nor the number of cars in my drive way. My life is richer because of the people I share my life with, and the simple life I choose to live each day.
Every day we are witnesses to our forests being decimated all in the name of progress. Shopping malls and auto dealerships are replacing these once beautiful and irreplaceable natural areas to satisfy the ravishing greed that has become a cancer to our society.
I have witnessed my beloved Blue Ridge Mountain succumb to the onslaught of development by the well to do, claiming to escape the city life. Yet they bring the city to this once pristine area of the country. They build their fancy summer lodges that they visit only periodically, and light up the night with their security lights, all in the name of progress.
If this were not enough they bring their fancy coffee shops, shopping malls, and restaurants, all to remind them of the hectic and chaotic life they chose to supposedly escape. We are beginning to pay for our uncontrolled growth, global warming is real, climate change is real, this is a direct result of progress, greed, and the belief that we are entitled to anything we want, no matter the cost.
Until we learn to control our excess desires, we will continue to bear witness to more catastrophes. Growth for the sake of growth, for the sake of lining an investors pockets, for the sake of progress, is wrong, and it is killing our precious earth.
