Speaking
both as an individual human being and as a member of the group (I'm
talking about our worldwide group ie all of
us, our entire species), I assert it's just possible our lives
are most likely to go astray and the
future
of humanity is most likely to go astray, when we
act
coming from not being at home with who we all are ie when
we
act
coming from not being OK with who we all are.
To pursue this inquiry, I
invite
you take a close look at when you and I and we all got
started.
Imagine
we're all the way back in our individual lives and in the life of all
of humanity, at the time when we were learning to set ourselves up on a
platform for living if you will. A platform for living is
the basis on which we each build our own individual lives, and on which
we all build the
future
of humanity's life on
the planet.
For the purposes of this inquiry, consider there are two possible
platforms we could choose from. The first platform is one on which we
believe
it's our lot to always be not OK with who we all are.
Anything we build on that platform in order to be OK with who we all
are, would be
futile.
At best, anything we build on that platform may only compensate some
but not all of us, for not being OK with who we all are.
Pause for a moment and
imagine
what's possible for each of us as individuals and what's possible for
the
future
of humanity, when we're each building on a platform like that one.
Now
imagine
a second platform, a platform on which our very ground of being is OK
with who we all are. Anything we build on this platform expresses being
OK with who we all are, and takes into account who we all are.
Imagine
what's possible for each of us as individuals and what's possible and
for the
future
of humanity, when we're building on a platform like this
one.
I find it
extraordinarily
useful as an exercise to examine my platform for living and to
scrutinize all the
actions
I take in my life (which correlate directly, by the way, with what I
say about my life) to see if I can distinguish between those
actions
that come from not being OK with
who I am
and not being OK with who we all are, and those
actions
that come from being OK with
who I am
and being OK with who we all are. If I tell the
truthunflinchingly about it, I notice the basis of my
actions
that come from not being OK with
who I am
and not being OK with who we all are, is the compulsion to be right and
to make others wrong, to dominate and to avoid being dominated ... in
other
words,
to win at any cost - and that's not "win" as in "win / win": rather
it's "win" as in "I must win / you must
lose". It's primitive and visceral. It's also rampant and pernicious.
Left unchecked, it soon pervades everything in life like an algae bloom
in a
warm pond.
When I find myself operating this way, you could say I'm being bad -
and to be sure, "bad" may not be the best
word
to use here, but in this
context
it's
good enough for
jazz.
The thing is when I tell the
truth
about being bad like this, I notice if all of us were also bad this
way, the combined result for humanity and for
the planet
would be positively horrifying. Oh! Wait a moment: isn't this what many
of the situations we see playing out today across
the world
in real time, do look like?
That's the bad
news.
Yet even when we're so buried in the bad
news
that
it seems as if any other choice is impossible, we really always do have
another choice in the matter. This other choice in the matter
shows up
with
transformation.
One of the characteristics of
transformation
is it allows people (you and I and we all) to be OK with who we all
are, and to
act
coming from being OK with who we all are. Anything we build on this
platform expresses being OK with who we all are, and takes into account
who we all are. And here's the thing: there's
nothing
to do to have being this way become possible other than
taking a
stand
for it becoming possible.
Listen:
being OK with who we all are, isn't a new space which
requires doing or practicing. Rather it's a space that's already
here. All that's required of you and of me and of we all is holding
the door
open
for it,
acting
coming from it, and taking it on as a viable platform for living.