What does it take to live a contented, peaceful, and fulfilling life? How can we live freely, less constrained by fear, anger, and affliction? Are these not fundamental questions for all of us? These questions have been answered many times, in many ways throughout human existence. I certainly do not presume to have THE answer, but can only offer another perspective, an amalgam or hybrid of spiritual and psychological conceptions and practices throughout the ages. This website, true to its title, is structured around awareness and fairness as guiding principles and practices which can lead us toward a greater understanding of ourselves and others, and make possible a more fulfilling life of quality, with less enduring stress and strife.

Awareness allows us to recognize our triggers and reactions that keep us stuck or interfere with finding that contentment and peace we long for. With awareness comes the ability to recognize our emotional and thinking reactions, our automatic, “programmed” behaviors that often interfere with our finding satisfaction and happiness. Most of us would probably agree that we often struggle to achieve certain personal goals and to maintain good relationships. With awareness, we have at least the possibility of understanding ourselves and acting in ways more compatible with the ways we claim we would like to be, both with ourselves and with others. Awareness in this sense is not superficial, but runs deep. It reveals not only external events, but their nuances. It illuminates our internal emotional reactions, habitual thinking patterns, and changes in mood which most of the time barely tickle our consciousness.

Acting fairly, with an open mind, respectfully, and non-judgmentally toward others is also essential to creating a better life. Fairness is meant to describe not justice in the legal sense but rather everyday actions that show an understanding of and respect for others and that reflect a “golden rule” morality.

The idea and practice of fairness has been neglected, if not abandoned in the competitive political and economic world we live in. In our striving for success, security, or for mere survival, we often fail to recognize other human beings as such, seeing them as objects, or as representations of a particular creed or narrative that clashes with our own. Our fellow human beings become either avenues or obstacles and threats to the realization of our own ideals and aspirations. I would submit that by elevating fairness in our treatment of others, despite our conflicting desires and beliefs, most of our social conflicts would fade, if not disappear.

This blog is an effort to inspire an inquisitive attitude and a different perspective in readers’ views of themselves and of other people, who are fundamentally more like us then not, despite the differing content of their beliefs and cultures. If enough people have a broader awareness of themselves and others and act with fairness and generosity of spirit, the world would indeed be better for all.