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It’s time for change. This isn’t because we’re smart enough to realize that we need change, but rather due to our lack of choice.

Image by Tony the Misfitvia Flickr

The world is in turmoil. I think that we’ve spent so many years looking for internal validation through external means, that we have collapsed on ourselves in many ways.

Now what? Where is our hope?

We have become people that want the guarantee, a “sure bet” before we “believe” in anything.  Well, I’m telling you this… If it doesn’t make sense inside for you, it won’t work. Not because it doesn’t have the potential to, but because if you cannot truly let go of needing the guarantee, there’s no way to really succeed. You can’t fake letting go.  

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All of this chaos has me grounded and sure. I’m so thankful for that. I understand that I HAVE A SAY in what happens not TO me, but FOR me. I am forever changed that way.

I haven’t had a raise in 3 years. I was promised an $8000 one this week. Today I found out that there’s a hold on my raise. If I lost my job today, I would be about 6 weeks away from losing my house. Maybe you look ahead and feel like you have to decide today what’s smart to do for your future. I see things differently because if I look ahead, it scares me so badly that it makes this job feel like something I should be forever thankful for. The truth is that I’ve been here a long time and am treated unfairly by an owner who has more money than any one man can spend. It’s when I get afraid, that this job defines me…defines me as a person who doesn’t have ANYTHING special and is lucky to be employed. Yuck.

I have started a project.  And that, along with the writing I do here, has shown me, even in this early stage, that I have some say in where I go.  That life doesn’t happen to me unless I stop participating. And, if honoring inspiration, creativity and hope, and understanding at long last that I have the power to create possibility for ALL things in my life MORE than a job or the stock market does isn’t smart thinking, I’m not so enamored with life, after all.

I don’t need to sell my idea or philosophy to anyone. My happiness is seen and my hopefulness heard, and from where I sit, the world needs more of that.  Our project and our ideas have come from a need to emerge from this world chaos with less dependency on what we truly cannot control and MORE dependency and reliance on ourselves and our special gifts…gifts that have been underutilized for YEARS, their importance and beauty lost to greed and power. Our project is a direct response to that chaos. 

There’s enough money in this world for ALL OF US to live just fine. The means of distribution is out of balance and has been for a long, long time. The playing field has been leveled in many ways by recent events, because that’s exactly what happens when we’re doing it wrong.  Not just in our country, but globally too. The USA isn’t the power it was. People who found security in their stock portfolio are filled with panic. MOST people are this way right now. This world will change to accommodate this new playing field because it HAS to. We have already made and seen so many adjustments. People are looking for something to believe in and eventually, people will understand the power of believing in themselves, and in other people too.  And, if that gift is what comes from all this chaos, it’s perhaps worth the crisis. 

Sharing ideas that make you feel hopeful is risky business. People might respond by shooting holes in them. Not because they’re mean, but because they’re scared. Scared to believe in possibility coming from within. And, really out of touch with the concept.  Putting energy into creating something has given me my hope back.  And, when I didn’t get my raise, I used what I’m doing to make my life better, to balance that for me. I’ll make more money soon. Not here at a company that represents ALL that has gone wrong in our society, but doing the RIGHT thing…giving a shit about the US and not just the ME.

Encourage everyone you encounter to share. Not their money, but themselves. If we get our hope from within ourselves, even the toughest of times will be manageable.

It doesn’t FEEL like it yet, but This is an opportunity to reconnect with other humans as a race, and get out of the one with those pesky rats.