By Dr. Nero Cavaliere

It was Kierkegaard , the Danish philosopher, who said “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards”.  Thinking about our past  is helpful in assisting us in making  the right decisions today , but we must keep in mind that every moment  of the present slips into our past thus we are constantly living in the future. Therefore, it is important for us to have  goals and objectives that will provide us with a greater appreciation of the fleeting present. In other words, rather than having materialistic goals such as wealth or success that, once attained, leave us nothing else to strive for, we should be constantly adjusting and adapting our goals  so that we appreciate what is truly important: relationships.  We are all connected  by virtue of our “humanness”. We are inextricably bound to each other as members of one universal family. We need to acknowledge the fact that the color of our skin, our ethnicity, religion,  and cultures may be different, yet they are all irrelevant when it comes to understanding that beneath these differences lie the “sameness” that each of us share.  It is this “oneness” that binds us together as equals. No one is greater or lesser than the other.