1. We are living in a time of transition and transformation

Society as we know it is in the early stages of collapse. Our economic systems, political systems, and many of the ways the dominant culture has conditioned us to think about and act towards one another are killing us as a species. Our systems, culture and relationships to one another need to evolve. It’s time to hospice dying systems and allow new systems to emerge. The only reasonable goal is a life-sustaining society. If we accept this, it doesn’t need to be as hard as it is right now. Parts of it could even be fun.

2. We are in a meaning crisis.

The human world is built on story. Stories function as maps for navigating our lives. The stories we tell about ourselves, our families and relationships, and the groups and nations we belong to are what hold us together. When we see evidence that the stories we’ve subscribed to are not true, we begin to dissociate from the story. The result is a crisis of meaning. The transition moment we are navigating as a species is causing people the world over to dissociate from the stories that we used to tell about how we are were connected to one another.

Since the human world is built on story… people, families, groups, nations need new stories that transcend (go beyond) and include the earlier stories. Children tell simple stories about the world around them, and as they grow up they tell stories with more nuance and complexity. Our task as evolving adults is to learn to tell stories about ourselves, the groups we identify with, and the species we belong that do justice to the fullness of our humanity. We can’t know what the new stories will be without engaging with one another. One person can’t do this alone. New stories will be the product of a curiosity-based culture, mindful dialogue, working through conflict and wanting to see what life looks like beyond the limiting beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world.

3. Humanity is just barely becoming conscious of itself.

We are in the awkward adolescence phase of our species. A third of the world’s population still hasn’t used the internet. We don’t really know what we are yet. It’s an exciting time to be alive – maybe the most exciting time ever. And, the number of ways we might cause our own destruction is growing. An unconscious species destroys itself. To survive and thrive, we need to become more conscious as individuals, groups, and as a collective. Becoming conscious is the product of facing and accepting all aspects of our reality, acknowledging the impacts of our actions and doing the work of bringing our impacts into alignment with our intentions.

4. Nobody is qualified to deal with the intersecting, species-threatening challenges we face.

All of us are perfectly qualified to perpetuate the patterns that have generated our precarious circumstances. Many of the patterns, habits, assumptions, norms, and ways of being that have been normalized are now hurting our chances at survival. We need to get curious about what’s helping, and what’s hurting, be willing to let go and learn from one another when we don’t know.

5. What we do matters, but unless we are vigilant about where we apply our attention and focus, we will cause further damage.

Each of us needs to learn more about the nature of our attention and the patterns of our own minds. Nobody else can do it for us. Our ability to pay attention has deteriorated over the last decade. When we re-strengthen our attention and practise putting it in places that we’ve neglected and forgotten about, we recover the ability to have agency over our own lives, be in relationship with those around us and craft new stories.

6. Tackling problems isn’t enough. We must create together.

We cannot stay grounded if all we’re trying to do is fix things that are broken. We need to practice noticing what is working, telling new stories, and we must make the time to envision better futures together, and to create those futures with one another.

7. The work begins here.

None of us can control much beyond our immediate circumstances. But our influence can go much further. Alice Walker said it perfectly when she wrote the following:

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

Every moment is an opportunity to face reality, and make choices that are life-giving to those around us. Right here: in our kitchens, neighborhoods, schools, workplace lunch rooms and community gatherings. Everything we do is an opportunity to invite more of the world we want into being.

8. The work begins now.

We can’t wait for the future. It doesn’t exist. It cannot save us. The present is the only tool at our disposal to shape what we call the future. We won’t know how to celebrate tomorrow’s successes if we don’t practise celebrating today’s successes. We won’t know how to take action on the opportunities life presents us with tomorrow unless we begin by taking action on the opportunities life has presented us with today. We won’t know how to face the challenges life hands us tomorrow, without facing the challenges life faces us today. Whatever it is we are waiting for, the only time we will ever do something about it is now.

9. Cultural forces have shaped each of us. It’s up to each of us to do the work.
   The culture we were born into doesn’t have a neutral effect on any of us. Without self-awareness practise, our behaviours become the sum of the cultural forces and personalities we have been exposed to. Many of these behaviours are leading us towards a future none of us want. Our work is about coming to accept the disparate parts we find within ourselves, speak kindly with them, and learn to integrate them in service of our conscious intentions.
10. None of us are disposable. Everyone has a role to play.

A life-sustaining society can include everyone. Each of us is perfectly positioned to play a unique role that no other person in the world can play.

11. We don’t have forever to figure ourselves out. We need to make good use of our time.
    As time passes, the risks associated with the overlapping crises of our time are growing.
12. There is no shortage of intelligence. We need wisdom more than intelligence.

Intelligence is what we know conceptually. Wisdom is how we integrate what we know. We know enough about what the mechanics of a life-sustaining society must look like, we just haven’t figured out how to activate it. The mystical wisdom traditions of virtually every culture are filled with time-tested teachings that help us integrate what we are know about reality into our lives and relationships. The work of our generation is learning to scale this wisdom up to the level of states, nations, and global human society.

13. None of us can tackle any of this alone. Escaping one another is not an option. Trying to causes further damage. We are in this together.

Heroism and individualism got us into this mess. It cannot get us out of it. Alone, we are blind – mostly to our own gifts and talents, but also to how we’re likely to hurt other people. When we work constructively and collaboratively together towards a common purpose, each of us can focus on what we’re good at, we can complement one another’s strengths, neutralize our blind spots, realize our collective potential, and build a world we’d never even imagined possible.

14. Institutions will not save us from ourselves. Relationships can do what institutions can’t do yet.

Our existing political and economic institutions are unfit for the task of building a life-sustaining society, and protecting us from the existential threats of our times. Reforming existing institutions and birthing new ones must happen, but it will not happen overnight, and we cannot wait for the institutions of the future to arrive to address the challenges we face. Our relationships with one another serve as innovation grounds for the institutions of the future.

15. This is not our best work. There must be a way we can all live well together.