Last century, values were completely different from those of today. Money, as per its meaning, was a tool used to do any business. Today it has become a priority and even an objective. To access money, people are ready to bypass respect, laws, priorities, culture and sometimes they kill to reach money, such as we see what drug traffickers do on a daily basis. If you look at the various countries in the world, you will never find anybody who leaves this world with bags of money. What remains of people is their reputation, their achievements, their positive thoughts, and their contribution to humanity, rather than their wallets.

Respect is another element which seems to have disappeared from our world. When you see young drivers making extremely loud noise with their motorcycle or with their cars, it is obvious that they do not care about others. When people throw garbage on the streets, it shows that they do not care about our planet. When a country aims to revive its past history and tries to control another one, this means that what had been agreed upon, worldwide, such as international borders, nothing remains from past values and decisions. If a country’s aim is to attract investors, it should write its decisions in a language that foreigners can understand, which, unfortunately, is often not the case.

New technologies and artificial intelligence have taken over, and people use their phones as a source of real news, which quite often is information put on air because of particular interests, and seldom reflect an impartial view.

Punctuality was also very important in the past; out of respect to others one would reach the location of the meeting a couple of minutes earlier. Today, blaming traffic or lack of parking space, people reach their meeting point, sometimes half an hour late, if not more.

Generally, personal interests have overshadowed empathy, care of environment, laws and regulations and this change is a real danger for our world in the coming decades if we do not correct it. Education is a real important element which could contribute to correct these changes. Many countries expect their governments or their leaders to take the right decisions, but we all are responsible and if each of us changes his thoughts and environment, then countries and the world will witness the desired changes. Movies these days reflect this lack of values. Generally they talk about wars, invasions, destruction etc. Even novels talk more about aggression, wars, thefts etc, rather than friendship, love and hope.

In the past, confidentiality allowed exchange of information with trusted people. Today, even important security and highly confidential elements appear on your Whatsapp. Trust seems to have disappeared.

We go from a quasi-healthy world towards a chaotic one, allowing technology and greed to take over without realising it. Let us wake up and work on this challenge.

Saleh Miri