The Center of the Universe

A few years ago I saw a book with the title The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want. With that sort of title, I was definitely curious. When I looked inside the cover, the following paragraph jumped out at me.

“You must recognize that you alone are the source of all conditions and situations in your life. You must recognize that whatever your world looks like right now, you alone have caused it to look that way. The state of your health, your finances, and your personal relationships: all of it is your doing, and no one else’s.” (emphasis added)

I am not sure if this book has become a bestseller, but it would not surprise me if it has. We are living in a time and age in which the media around us is screaming – Life is all about you! In western cultures, children on average see over 40,000 advertisements a year. This is an alarming statistic when you realize that the goal of advertising is to make YOU feel unsatisfied about something so that YOU will purchase something to satisfy YOURself. We are living in a leisure-driven, entertainment-focused, self-help promoting, humanistic, consumption frenzied world. What advertising is saying to us and our children every day through images, music, and powerful marketing strategies is that you are the center of the universe.

This year our theme as a school is “It’s Still Not About Me.” With this theme, we are making a bold statement that we do not agree with what the world is trying to tell (or sell) us. We are stepping out to be a counter-cultural school and teach a radically different worldview. We will teach our students that the best things in life happen when you serve other people, not yourself. We will help them understand that a life focused on serving yourself and your own needs will leave you dissatisfied and empty. Throughout this year we will challenge our students to ask the question, “If it’s still not about me, then who or what is it about?”