Shifting the Global Mindset: A Vision for a More Unified, Compassionate World
- May 30, 2025
- 3 min read
By Maaria Mozaffar
We are more alike than we are different
We have a blood pumping heart, muscles that move us and bones that hold us.
When we lose a limb, we feel devastated and defeated.
We were born through our mothers and hold our babies till they fall asleep.
We are in pain when we are hungry and cold when we are without shelter. Our skin feels frostbite and sunburn and if we walked miles without shoes our feet would be sting with blisters.
We have values that transcend identity
We want our children to feel safe at night.
We want our children to feel they can depend on our words when we say “It will be alright”.
We want our parents to feel protected in their old age.
We want our partners to come home to us at night and safely reach their destinations when they travel without us.
We value family. We value safety, We value rest when needed. We value the duty to protect and the right to be protected.
Policies have to be seen as human first
Legislations passed by the legislature are created to solve problems. With the foundations of efficiency and equity being the ideals of their success. We create these policies to create systems and processes that provide balance in our communities. Then how is it that efficient systems result so often in negative human impact? For example, why is it that we don't connect the dots between poor determinants of health to food deserts, poor public education or access to health services? If we are to solve problems, what about the people that we are solving them for? In my work I have too often seen the target of policies to be one that focuses on efficiency of a community while seeing people as a liability. If we fail to see policies as a method to have fairness and mercy on the humans and its impacts, we will be creating systems that only further harm the people the policies are aimed to protect. Efficiency cannot be traded for human dignity.
Empathy is the superpower
By recognizing how another life can be improved by seeing myself in their shoes, we are able to get closer to a solution we are attempting to advance in a variety of societal issues. I have found this exercise in my legislative work to be extremely powerful, humbling.
We cannot adequately gather information on the harm that needs to be alleviated unless we can see how the harm would impact us as human beings ourselves.
Technology can be used to divide us or unite us
Despite the access to technology which could provide windows to the world, we are creating self serving echo chambers that divide us based on the perceptions we adopt about other communities. The more we believe and internalize these perceptions, the more we create algorithms that cement our opinions. Thus deliberately, we are choosing to amplify our differences and see less humanity in one another.
Discrimination, Ethnocentrism, Racism is a learned behavior.
I wish I could say that some people are just born with a desire to divide or create unjust systems for others. It would be a lot easier to understand the lack of a desire for some to unite on overarching ideals and suffering. Yet, these notions are learned. They are adopted by consistently seeing global suffering and harm even at the local level so often, that for some it becomes part of the natural order of our world. We don't have to accept that. Empathy is just as natural as apathy. Human dignity is just as vital as efficiency.
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