Each of us is given choices each day, and within those choices, is the opportunity to be of aid to mankind, or to be harmful. Quite obviously, most people would prefer to be of help to others, and many of those people believe that is exactly what they are doing, but in actuality, when we take a unvarnished look at the world as it is, we can see that more times than desired, mankind is destructive, self-serving, and harmful in ways big and small to others, and thereby our world, reflects this.
Those that clamor most for change, that is, change that will make society and the world better, have an absolute obligation to be that change, themselves. That is to say, the most important person to change for the better is our own self, for in our own life, we have if not total control, at least, captaincy of our lives. Then, to prove that we are consistent with our beliefs about being constructive and of aid to our fellow mankind, our lives must live up to that high standard, as often as we can achieve such.
In this world, far too many people, allow far too often, their ego and their selfish desires to get the better of them, so that, when provided with the opportunity to do right with another, those that lack appropriate self-discipline, maturity, and wisdom, will make decisions that are inimical to the other, while seems then to provide their own self with a short or even a long-term benefit. Those sorts of actions are not good, because anytime that in order for an individual to benefit, it is at the expense of another, then the world in whole, has gotten no better. Rather, the primary objective should be to conduct our life in a manner in which we see ourselves in the other, and therefore we are fair minded, as opposed to being opportunistic at the other's expense.
If more of us lived under the motto that "first, we do no harm to the other," then for a certainty, this world would be better for having such a motto, followed. So too, if more of us were transparent in our actions, as compared to being deceptive and two-faced, there would consequently be more openness and honesty in our interactions with other people. In general, the world reflects like for like, so that if the world is perceived as a zero sum society, in which each has to get theirs at the expense of the other, then such a world, will never have and will never achieve a lasting peace, or justice, or fairness.
We are obligated to do no more than the best that we know how, but if our societal viewpoint is distorted or wrong to begin with, than our result will consist in part of confusion and harm. In order to do better, we must make it our point and principle to be better ourselves, and thereby to strive to do right in all our interactions with others, and never to be the one that wrongly mistreats another, remembering well that we are gifted and blessed with a free will that definitively defines what we really are, in which our actions, right or wrong, are fully ours to own up to.