George Link Spaeth, a leading world expert in the treatment of glaucoma, reflects on a half-century of curing patients suffering from problems of vision and concludes that many of the most pressing problems affecting society today stem from our inability to see and react to daily life in realistic terms. As a result, many of us live in a perpetual state of dysfunction. As the author explains: "Our capacity to destroy has overwhelmed our ability to protect. Our capacity to hate has drowned our ability to love and our capacity for domination has blinded us to other alternatives. The progress that led to the advantages we enjoy has also sown the seeds of destruction."

We cannot really consider ourselves well when we ignore the impact that our actions have on others, and more specifically on nature and the environment which increasingly suffer irreparable damage as a result of human carelessness and lack of foresight. The problem is that we ultimately depend on our environment to make our existence possible. Too often we engage in denial and fool ourselves into thinking that our excesses and bad decisions don't really matter. The cumulative result is a world that appears to be permanently mired in chaos. The solution is for each of us to look at the world more realistically and to become more aware of the impact that we have on life around us.