Personal Growth as a Model for Society

Much of our lives seem haphazard and disorganized. Sometimes doing our best simply means being able to get out of bed and go through the motions. As we gain awareness we learn how to better navigate life’s obstacles. We learn to see the obstacles as the way. It is possible – I am living proof.

As my journey – specifically the work I am doing here on my podcast – evolves I go back and forth between thinking I have no idea what’s going on and an integrated theme.

Does that sound familiar? Sometimes everything makes sense. Most of the time it doesn’t. But I live for that sense of flow.

This episode is a few steps toward integrating the first 139 episodes of KEW. And nearly 15 years of reading, listening, thinking, and learning.

I used to say the big questions I was pursuing were things like ‘Why am I here?’, ‘Who am I?’, and ‘What is the purpose of life?’ But lately, I think the real questions are more like ‘How are we doing?’, ‘What is good and what is bad?’, ‘Is there a better way for humans to live?’.

My reason for pursuing these things is twofold. I want to live a ‘better life’ (whatever that means) and I want humans to ‘better evolve’.

I don’t think anyone will disagree with me that humans are plagued with problems. Sure, we learned how to make water safe to drink, reduce infant mortality, live longer and healthier lives, and move food around the planet. But what have we lost?

I look around and see problems. Problems that plague us as individuals like anxiety, depression, and suicide. And problems that plague our societies like war, hunger, income inequality, and racism.

These indicators of human well-being suggest that we could do better.

And that’s what I’m looking for. What is it that we could do better? What things should we stop doing? What are the relationships between the things we do, have, and want and how we experience life?

In this episode, I outline the basic components of healthy living as individuals and as groups. I firmly believe that we have to figure our own shit out fairly well before we can have the conversations that will change the world.

Using personal growth as a model I think we can apply the same tools that heal us as individuals to groups. Families, communities, societies, and civilizations can grow as individuals grow. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

More soon.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/530563/13482169

https://youtu.be/8_i4Iou5H3Q