(This is the final chapter of my book.  I hope it persuaded you to leave the rat race to the rats for the goodwill revolution so that you will practice goodwill to all routinely and thus make Jamaica and this world a better place. I hope it made a lasting impression rather than just fade away. Jamaica desperately need these changes but I have no illusions.)

                                              Chapter 14

                                                         Fill Your Pockets or Fill Your Soul

The primary goal

Shall we fill our pockets or shall we fill our soul? Do you want to be happy or rich? Which is your primary goal?  Goodwillies want to be happy. Everyone thinks they want to be happy but what they really want to be is to be rich. So the few that actually become rich, lots of money, find out that , surprise!, that they are not happy. Many of us assume that if we become rich, happiness will be automatic. All our dreams will come true. Lots of rich people are unhappy. Now if you are rich and unhappy, what is the value of your wealth?

Feasibility

Which is a more feasible goal for the Jamaican population, to be rich or to be happy?  There is no question in my mind that it is much easier to be happy than rich. Only a minority of people can be rich. Can we be happy without being rich? Sure we can. So if we  are happy, why do we need to be rich. Some people will say they want to be rich and happy. But once again if you are happy, why do you need to be rich? The fact of the matter is to be happy and to be rich are two distinct goals. Each goal requires different actions.

I know many people are conditioned to think money is better than happiness. Would you give up riches to be happy?  I know many who have. Yes, they  gave  up the fancy car, the palatial residence, substantial income and even luxurious lifestyle just to be happy. The gave that all up because of a process  called divorce.

According to the Bible

If we turn to the Bible scriptures, there you will find the strongest support for goodwillie principles. These days the true message of Christmas is lost in a buying frenzy. The true message is "Peace on earth. Goodwill towards all men." Christmas should be a big peace festival, a special time to promote goodwill towards all men instead of the awful commercialisation it now represents. This is not just a Christmas message, but it is the inspiration for goodwillies and the Goodwill Revolution. If we want peace on earth, we have to have goodwill towards all men. Just as the Christmas message has been distorted to buy, buy, buy to excess, so also has our lives been distorted to buy, buy, buy to excess. And as religious as we claim to be our true god becomes "money", money to buy, buy, buy to excess.

Despite what your preacher says, the Bible is clear and consistent on this point. "You cannot serve God and mammon." (Luke Chapter 16 v 13) Mammon is money, wealth, riches. When a rich man came to Jesus Christ and asked what should he do to achieve eternal life. We goodwillies are not as extremist as Christ, when he told the rich man to sell all that he had, give the proceeds to the poor and follow Him. When he refused, Christ said "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Luke Chapter 18 v 25)

Christ threw the money lenders out of the temple. But, guess what? They're back. The church and big money are intertwined. Fundamentalist churches like  the Moral Majority in America are economic empires themselves.

The bible is relentless in attacking the pursuit of money as a goal. However, this message is strangely absent from our contemporary rich religious leaders. We goodwillies clearly have the bible on our side on this issue.

In the Bible, Paul raises the question of what is the greatest virtue? He then went on to reduce it to three finalists. In justifying his selection of his top choice, Paul produced some of the most quoted and most beautiful verses in the Bible. When I was younger, the translation identified them as faith, hope and charity. The contemporary translation now has changed charity to love. There is a big difference between charity and love. Charity denotes a sense of giving, a sharing of ones fortunes with the less fortunate. The dictionary defines it as “an act of feeling of benevolence, goodwill or affection”.

Love is even harder to define. There are all sorts of love, romantic love, puppy love, maternal love, kinky love. Love uplifts, hurts, ennobles. As a popular Jamaican song asks "If love's so good, how come it feels so bad?" Everyone seems to have a different understanding of what love is and is the basis of many types of action, some good, some bad. Love is different things to different people. Oscar Wilde said:

“Yet each man kill the thing they love

By each let this be heard

Some do it with a bitter look

Some with a flattering word

The coward does it with a kiss

The brave man with a sword."

For these reasons I think the translators could have come up with a more appropriate word. The meaning of goodwill is unmistakable so I think this is much more appropriate. So here the revision of the  Corinthians selected verses from Chapter 13: (King James version)

"1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels; and have not goodwill, I am become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains; and have not goodwill, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my gifts to the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, it profiteth me nothing.

........

4 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I thought as a child: but when I become a man, I put away childish things.

5 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known.

6 And now abideth faith, hope and goodwill, these three, but the greatest of these is goodwill."

Pope Francis chose to fill his soul

Pope Francis is the 266th and current Pope of the Catholic Church. He has rejected the materialistic privileges of his office such as:

Instead of a fancy chauffeured limousine he drives around in a humble Fiat.

Instead of living in the regal Vatican residence, he chose a simple Vatican guesthouse.

Instead of the glitzy gold, rich velvet, regal fur he chose to wear mainly a simple white cassock and sensible black shoes.

Even while he was a cardinal, he carried his own bags when travelling, , preferred public transportation to chauffeur-driven limousines, and, in one of his first acts as pope, he stopped by the hotel where he stayed before the conclave that elected him pope to settle his bill himself.

Uruguay President chose to fill his soul

President José “Pepe” Mujica of Uruguay , a 78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison,  mostly in solitary confinement, rejected materialism for the simple life. He was the 40th President of Uruguay between 2010 and 2015. For example:

• He rejected the materialistic perks of the presidency.
• He refused to live at the Presidential Palace choosing instead to live in a one-bedroom house on his wife’s farm.
• He refused to have a motorcade.
• Instead of a fancy chauffeured limousine in 2015 he was driving a 1987 Volkswagen Beetle.
• He donates over 90% of his $12,000/month salary to charity so he makes the same as the average citizen in Uruguay .

When called “the poorest president in the world,” Mujica says he is not poor. “A poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more. I don’t live in poverty, I live in simplicity. There’s very little that I need to live.”

I hope Jamaican political leaders take a page out of his book.

Fill Your Soul

The problem is that all over the world we have been filling our pockets. The result - Lebanon, Chile, Iraq, Haiti, England, America, Ecuador, Algeria, Honduras, Colombia, Bolivia, Hong Kong, Libya, Spain are all erupting with despair and discontent (October 2019). Which country will be next? These are desperate times. These desperate times require the Goodwill Revolution. Let us fill our souls.  Let us not fight fire with fire. Let us instead fight fire with the Goodwill Revolution. We don’t want the Goodwill Revolution to lie dormant in some obscure book  

In fact, this book is not just a book, but it is an invitation to join the Goodwill Revolution. Proclaim it to your friends, relatives and to as many as you can. Be a pioneer.  Jamaican politicians, JLP and PNP,  churches, all organisations that care about Jamaica and the people in general, should embrace and promote the Goodwill Revolution

Let us all spread the word. Let us use radio, fliers, internet, celebrities, word-of-mouth, door-to-door, church pulpits,  sporting events, special concerts etc.. The more the merrier.

In Jamaica, goodwillism should become our national policy. Right now, Jamaica and other countries have no stated national policy, so the money-hogging rat race is the national policy by default and with dire consequences. These dire consequences are things like corruption, greed, gross income inequality, the undermining and manipulation  of democracy by the rich,

We have been conditioned to look upon the rich powerful countries as models. Why should these rich powerful countries be the model for the world with their history of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed by their wars, their slaughter and dispossession of  indigenous people all over the world. In God’s name, why?

Forget them. Let us be different. Don’t look elsewhere. In the words of Afro-American author Alice Walker,” we are the ones we have been waiting for”. With Goodwillism as our national policy, it will improve every aspect of Jamaica life. So, by enlisting Jamaicans in the Goodwill Revolution, we can make Jamaica the most desirable country in the world. Jamaica must lead the way and serve as a model for the rest of the developing world to follow.