What does that look like? How do we get there?
Some might say we are there already, and in a limited sense, we are.
We are not limited in the possibility that the world can work for everyone, but in our belief that it doesn’t work already.It works right now by the conscious belief that it does or doesn’t. While I may believe it works for me, and it does, another person may feel that the world really sucks for them. So, by our belief in the idea that it works, it does. And, conversely, by ones belief that it doesn’t work for them, it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean it can’t, but their choice is it doesn’t.
How can this be? How can it work for me, but not for everyone? It works by our belief in it, and by our disbelief that it could. It’s that simple, but we have to learn to let go of our expectations that everything must happen the way we expect it, and be open to the idea that there is another way, or another possibility.
Most people get stuck in the idea that their way is the only way and that everything must unfold exactly as they have planned it. If they were the only ones who existed in the moment that may be true, but with 7 billion people and just as many thoughts, we need to be open to the idea that just maybe there is an alternate or better way.
I remember when I was manufacturing hot sauce, I had this great idea for a name that was colorful, and enticing. I checked the trademark and there was nothing, so I engaged an artist friend of mine to design a label around my theme “Leapin’ Lizards.”
I designed the labels and was ready to send them to the printer when I took a trip to Miami to buy equipment and visited a manufacturer I was thinking of using for distribution and went on a tour of his factory. It was there that I was introduced to “Leapin’ Lizards” marinade. There were hundreds of cases and right then, I knew my label idea was history.
I could have let that be my demise or held the thought that my hot sauce line was doomed, but I knew something else would come along, and upon returning to the islands a friend referred to my sauces as being “a little spice from paradise” and a new tag line was borne. From that came a bunch of even better ideas and Caribbean Marketplace and “Mean Mama Jamma” were borne.
So, just because something doesn’t work the first time, doesn’t mean it won’t work, or that something even better won’t come along. Heck, Thomas Edison failed to invent the light bulb hundreds of times, but in the end, he did. In the process what he did was to eliminate all of the ways not to have it work. That’s what the scientific method is all about. You may be a success right out of the gate or you may have to work at it a little. That’s life.
So, how do we build a world that works in a positive, sustaining, productive way for everyone?
We open our minds to ideas that are inclusive of everyone. We begin to respect each other’s cultures and recognize that in the differences, we find similarities.We learn to engage in real conversations that build on those relationships and cultivate them with compassion and empathy. And, above all, we learn engage with and respond to people from a loving place.
Will this happen overnight? Probably not, but the only way it will happen at all is, if we try.
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