Imagine a beautiful garden.

Everything is made for us you enjoy, every being is under your control, they exist to be used as you saw fit. You do not age, you have no cause for worry, and you’ll be left with no unfulfilled desire. There you will stay, content and complacent.

You can have anything you want, except one. In the middle of the garden there stands a tree, bearing the most attractive fruit you have ever seen. A tree of knowledge, understanding and wisdom. All the things that you cannot have if you want to stay.

A popular story in the western culture and mythology. The first humans took that bite, and so they were cast in an unforgiving world, scared and alone. But they did not give up, slowly building a world that would be better for their children, time after time, and here we are now, living a life that early humans couldn’t even dream of, and we are only beginning to scratch the surface of our potential.

We could not have happily remained ignorant forever

In the beginning the truth will be terrifying, and you would wish you were back in the garden, blissfully unaware of how much responsibility you have, to your own life, to others, and to the planet.

Facing reality and dealing with your problems, no matter how scary it might be, will always be better than staying put and shutting your eyes, pushing blame to others.

If you had stayed in that garden, you wouldn’t have grown into the person you are today. You wouldn’t have experienced all the beauty, the pain, the happiness that only humanity is able to feel. In the end, it will be worth it.

The beautiful thing about human beings is that we are always hungry for knowledge. We are a species of progress, striving to be better. A hundred years from now, society would have changed significantly, and we would face a whole other myriad of opportunities and issues, but we would be wiser, bolder, compassionate and hopefully united. Facing the challenges, human as ever.