The Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo is yet another endangered species on the planet. The population of these beautiful birds has dropped by fifty percent on the Perth Coastal Plain since 2010. The total population remaining is estimated to be at 40,000 individuals.

The thing is most of us are more concerned with dwindling bank account than the dwindling population of species. Little did we know that the world functions on balance. What affects everything else also affects us.

Take a look at the air we breathe, nobody thinks much of it as it is freely available. The natural air that sustains us is made up of various gases that include nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, neon, helium, krypton, hydrogen, and xenon in perfect amounts. Any more or less of the combination, it starts to threaten our survivability. All these gases are held in by the earth’s gravity so that we can exist. Plants and animals also produce the gases that the other needs to live by. Animals exhale carbon dioxide as a waste product that plants need. In turn, plants make use of carbon dioxide during photosynthesis to produce the oxygen that we need.

It is a miracle in that we can do nothing and yet the universe is taking care of us in its mysterious way. There is a delicate balance running in the world. Just from this example, you can see that if we reduce the number of animals drastically and upset the balance, we will inevitably cause damage to the world and ourselves.

The question is even if we knew, will we do something about it?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Most of us are just worried about ourselves. We call that being selfish. The word selfish is very vague. The way I see it is, “it is just the way things are.” I learned it the hard way, this thing about “it is just the way things are.” There are only two ways people can choose their actions—either consciously or unconsciously. Either way, you can’t change their outcome. Things always happen for a reason and we are the ones that choose those reasons to act on. It is just that most people choose unconsciously, without thinking through the consequences of their actions. Depleting natural resources, animals and plants going extinct, ozone depletion and global warming are just some of the consequences of our unconscious actions.

Things are only going to change when we act with awareness. Until then, it is just the way things are.