The Solution?

Are you a soldier? Do you want to become a capable and respected superior one day? Then note the following:

Your overall authority rests on three other authorities, namely:

1. Your professional authority.
2. Your personal authority.
3. The authority of your rank or your post.

Professional authority you mostly acquire on your own. There is always something to learn. Read, read, read, try things out and practise, practise, practise.

You want thinking, willing obedience from your subordinates? Be calm, friendly, polite, respectful, always in a good mood and, if you can, humorous. As you call into the forest, so in most cases it will echo back. Personal authority, right?

And lastly the authority of your rank. In a certain sense the least important. The least suited to winning willing, obedient followers.

So, you want to become a capable, respected superior? Then rely on professional and personal authority, and only last on the authority of rank.

He who believes he is the best has stopped being good.

You are never the best. Never. You must always scrutinise and question yourself. There is always something you can do better. Act like this, and you can be among the best. Among the best. The best you never are.

Strive for the maximum in order to achieve the minimum. Try to be an all-rounder who can do everything, in order to achieve the ability to multitask that today's global problems require.

What is the problem in this world?

The problem in this world is the human being – endowed with reason, yet often unreasonable.

The world is hungry for reason – but it doesn't know it yet.

What are the global problems threatening mankind that are solvable in principle, but whose solution requires convincing people endowed with reason?

e.g. the potential for conflict in religious orientation and the interpretation of religion.

The continued burden on the environment.

Poverty and hunger.

Overpopulation.

The striving for power of individuals, intertwined with ideology or religiosity. (e.g. North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, the caliphate sought by al-Qaeda)

The tense state between nuclear powers over the claim to rule a province. (Kashmir and the relationship between India and Pakistan)

What is the right approach to a solution? The right approach is to know that people can be convinced by morally and rhetorically valuable argument. And one must know in what form and through which channels the information or messages can be spread.

And one must be patient. And know that there are people who are so deeply shaped that they cannot be convinced because they do not want to be convinced.

As Winston Churchill once said: Ill people. Pff! Some are curable, others are killable.

(Or it is possible to isolate them)

A lofty goal often requires the same patience it takes for a falling drop of water to hollow out a stone.

Inventing the problem is more important than inventing the solution; there is more in the question than in the answer. (By formulating the problem, one harnesses the mental power of many. So that it may be solved.)