You Already Change the World

“The world is far more sensitive than we have ever dreamed.”

-Margaret Wheatley, in Leadership and the New Science

Welcome, worldchanger.  Thanks for coming.  I suspect that you’re here because you want things to be better because you have lived.  Because you want to make your life matter, in a way that feels real to you.   To touch something, make something, dream something, solve something.  To know that when your time here is up, whether your life’s end comes early or late, the timing is right, because you did it, and it was enough.

But no matter who you are and what dreams and desires brought you here to this page, to read these words in this moment, there is something I need to tell you.  Something you need to know.

You already change the world.

Breathe.  It’s done.  You’ve done it.  Your very existence has changed everything.

The day you were born, the second you took your first breath, the first time you screamed at the top of your lungs, the world was forever changed.  (If you need evidence for this, interviewing your parents might be a good place to start).

You changed the world again this morning when you got up and flushed the toilet.  Whoosh!  The world is changed! And you created something—it’s like you’re a god! (Think I’m being snarky?  Well, just a little bit–except for the fact that human sanitation is a giant social and environmental problem.)

Ok, ok.   I can hear the sighs of annoyed frustration and feel the giant eye rolls from here: “Yeah, yeah, we’re all special and It’s A Wonderful Life and all that crap.  But I’m serious here. I want to really change the world.  As in, I want to be the next Gandhi/Fanny Lou Hamer/Steve Jobs/Mother Teresa/Martin Luther King Jr./JFK/[insert your role model here].”

Yes, yes—trust me, I know.  So do I.  And we’ll get to that part.  But first we really, really need to understand this part first.  Because it’s the foundation of everything we’ll talk about here.

Have you ever stood in line in front of a really huffy, stressed person?  Got cut off in the car by someone who had somewhere SUPER important to be (definitely more important than where you were going…if they even paused to think about you at all).  Or–have you ever been smiled at by a stranger on the street?   Saw a child at the park giggling like crazy because she discovered “helicopter” seeds?

Were you affected?  How?

Our world is reflexive, constantly acting, reacting and interacting: responding to new information, new people, new actions, new thoughts and behaviors.  You and I are constantly participating in creating the reality around us—around all of us.

Just by breathing, existing, taking up space, you affect the world.  Every time you walk into a room, the dynamic changes.  People react to you.  To your mood, your beliefs, your thoughts, your way of being in that moment.

Here’s another example: have you ever been in a desperate situation—one where you were alone or afraid, or grieving–and someone just came and sat with you?  What was different, between when they weren’t sitting there, and when they were?  They weren’t talking.  Maybe they didn’t even touch you.  What was different?

?

The answer?  They were there.  Just being.   Breathing.  Oxygen.  Carbon dioxide. Oxygen.  Carbon dioxide.  Repeat.

Whatever they were doing (or not doing), it affected you.  It mattered.  Your world, your experience in that moment, was changed.

……….

Do you believe me yet?

It’s ok if you don’t.  Skepticism is healthy.  Test it out.  But, for the sake of time and progress, let’s assume for a moment that you both accept and acknowledge the truth that you are, in fact, changing the world right now, in this very moment.

If we accept this as true–that you already change the world–the next important question becomes… how are you changing it?

And how do you want to be changing the world?  Is it working?

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That’s why I’m here—to ask those questions, and to try and find the answers.  Because you are already changing the world.  And so am I.  So let’s figure out how to do it on purpose.  And have some fun doing it.

Are you in?