Changing the World
/Making the world a better place depends on understanding the constant struggle each of us must go through to answer: who am I? why am I here? and what should I do? To make the most amount of positive change today means helping the most amount of people actualize their full potential by building the ability to effectively engage in this struggle. Although every person has the opportunity to maximize their potential, we must create a world that functions to make self-actualization the path of least resistance for everyone. The most effective, efficient, and positive change the world needs today will come from expanding the collective potential of humanity.
“Within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. Or risking oversimplification, individual selection promoted sin, while group selection promoted virtue. So it came to pass that humans are forever conflicted by their prehistory of multilevel selection. They are suspended in unstable and constantly changing positions between the two extreme forces that created us.”
Learning more about your own unique internal conflict and how to live with it is the start towards becoming the best you are capable of becoming. As Josh Waitzkins puts it in The Art of Learning, “those who excel are those who maximize each moment’s creative potential.” Present awareness is the foundation for strengthening one’s knowledge of the subtle nuances of the internal state and gaining the confidence to positively influence the world, it is the means by which people begin to understand their limits and how to go beyond them. Leading people toward becoming the best they are capable of becoming begins by understanding the unique combination of forces and environmental circumstances that will most likely lead to the strengthening of a system-for each unique individual-which affords them the desire to actualize their full potential and the opportunity to take the path which will ultimately lead to that outcome.
How do people figure out what is the right action for them in each moment (is it always a conscious process, are we absent of free will, or is it a mixture of both?) It seems to me that we only have the ability to set intentions and, over time, as we become masters of setting intentions and attending to how they affect our experience moment to moment we begin to affect the structures in our brain-its wiring-such that our actions moment to moment eventually become those we ultimately intended. I don’t know what the meaning of existence is so I don’t know its implications for how people should live, but so far it seems purpose isn’t found in the meaning but rather in the process of searching for it, of engaging in the internal struggle common to every person, and of eventually overcoming ourselves to experience a momentary glimpse of truth. I’m led to believe that to make the world a better place we must strive to help more people fulfill their full potential so they have the best resources to engage in this struggle, and eventually after working very hard more people will be able to direct their attention and energies on actions that lead to self-growth and benefit for the whole world.
A lot of people are talking about making the world a better place without fully recognizing the uncertainty behind what that actually means, which isn’t surprising because a lot of difficult questions must be addressed-some that may even be unanswerable. But the first step to change is recognizing there’s a problem in the first place, and people all over the world are recognizing that the collective capabilities available in the world are not matched by the benefits people are actually receiving. The only way we are going to change the world is by doing it together, and the first step to ensuring change goes down the most effective and moral path is making sure every person has the ability to function at the full capacity naturally granted to them.
In an upcoming post, Food and Education, the institutions hurting human potentiality the most will be analyzed to shine light on fundamental questions that must be addressed when trying to implement any change. To receive an update when this post comes out please subscribe below.
Questions addressed in this post:
“Success is peace of mind which a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”