I have been occupied with this question since last some months, what is that one most critical parameter we need to work on for creating an empathetic world? The one answer that has made the most sense to me is that the future of the world will be directly dependent on how we nurture and educate our children.
In my quest to find an answer I have been talking to the contemporary educationist, and people who might have researched this question. However, the most profound understanding of human development came from these words of Khalil Gibran – these words now serve as an anchor for to look back to whenever I am reflecting on the above question.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
