英文散文: Civic Responsibility

上禮拜，實驗室很亂，我老闆大怒要求相關的研究生寫英文散文:Civic Responsibility.我就以神學角度出發寫了這篇:

To properly understand and internalize civic responsibility among our mind, we need first to understand what human being is composed of. What makes human being different from other creature is that we were created to have soul, superior mind and body while they only have simpler mind and body. Unfortunately, our soul was died long time ago when our ancestor made mistakes against God. The remaining components including mind and body were also cursed so we all will die one day and this world is told to be shut down eventually. Nowadays, people have no clue at all where to go after they die. God strictly prohibited revealing any associated facts regarding the world after the dead. Therefore, people are trying to do whatever makes their mind and body comfortable while they are living in this world. In order to achieve this, for most organizations of human being existing in this world, the most important principle is to making profit or to satisfying their desires. Although the US Constitution declared, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States.", it passively serves as a reminder that people “also” need to consider responsibility while they are making profit or satisfying their needs. Because of this fact, what I firmly believe is that this world will be gradually degenerating till its end.

What can make the world decaying slower is not to develop green industry or ally with China. It is to awaken and enhance the “residue conscience” within us. It can be regarded as sort of “soft power” since we can not see it. This power includes that people living in this world not to be selfish, always think of other people’s benefits, willing to sacrifice for others, willing to leave his/her comfort zones and serve the public. These merits are the foundations of what called civic responsibility which is what we should do for other people regardless of our own benefits. The more these merits we establish within ourselves, the more civic responsibilities we can endure. For example, we all know that we should turn off light when leaving, but if we only think of ourselves and not concern others. Then it is very easy to forget doing it. On the other hand, if it is stamped in our will, we will do it naturally all the times. Furthermore, if this power is very strong, we will be willing to donate our money or spend our time to those needed our help because we truly care about them.

The benefits of having civic responsibility in this world are very obvious: This world is going to be cleaner, peaceful, time and money efficient. The relationship between people will be more positive. Imagine in our sweet family, your wife/husband always thinks of you first and is willing to sacrifice her/his time to be with you. How warm and satisfied we will feel. Then, numerous such families will form quite a positive power in this world. If we keep inferring from a healthy family to a decent nation, this world gets whole lot better: fewer lawsuits, lower divorce rate, lower criminal rate, higher happy index number and so on. The key point is that it is good to have civic responsibility; we definitely want other people to have it. However, it can be very difficult to train ourselves since it is against our real nature. It is very important to find strong motivations in order to establish civic responsibility among us and it is listed as below:

1) No pain no gain: Leaving our comfort zones is painful. But it also means we are moving and transforming to a better individual.

2) Giving is better than receiving: When we are giving, we are learning better and we are thinking and being inspired more. Actually, we feel much happier to help others.

3) Long term asset concept: This sort of soft power is much more important than any knowledge we learned or any works we have done: What we have learned and done is just for some specific areas but for the soft power, we can take with us and apply to anywhere. It is truly a sort of long term asset and worth our investment.

With this human natural that we are inheriting from our ancestor, it is next to impossible to see a person born to have civic responsibility. Even people were educated or forced to behave nice, if it is not stem from bottom of their will, the effect is limited. This article points out that unless we understand what we are and reform our mind which has been polluted and twisted, we will not carry out civic responsibilities everlastingly. The reformation of our mind can be achieved through self-training. Several motivations have been suggested. For the application of the above-mentioned points to the members of TICS, we have to know that the group is big and has no lab manager. Also UCSD ECE department has very poor building management system: no monitoring cameras and door swipe systems. It is very important that everyone internalizes civic responsibility. When we come to office everyday, not just think about the project. In our mind, we have to treat cultivating civic responsibility as important as our PhD thesis or papers. It is inevitable sometimes we are in rush or trying to catch deadlines so it may not be easy to maintain the lab under such circumstances. However, if we equip with this soft power: not selfish, think of others’ benefits, willing to sacrifice for others, (ultimately, love your colleagues if your power is this strong). Civic responsibility will be nothing but natural behaviors.