🌍 How do we find a way forward in a world we cannot recognize?
🤔 How do we know what to do in a world we do not understand?
🏝️ How can you be an island of sanity amid constant uncertainty?
📚 These are all questions that Margaret Wheatley explores in “Who We Choose to Be.”
🛑 Hope no longer lies in systemic change, which the time has passed, but rather, it is hope that hinges on individuals creating metaphorical “islands of sanity.”
🌟 The world does not need more entrepreneurs or technological breakthroughs. Instead, it needs leaders.
💪 Local leaders who put service over self and understand that the powerful will always defend the status quo because it is the source of their power and privilege.
🌐 It is essential to understand the complexity of global problems, systemically define root causes and propose meaningful solutions. Still, we are impotent to influence those in power who ignore our efforts. We have not failed because of a lack of ideas and technologies. We have failed from a lack of will. The solutions we needed were already here.
🔝 Leaders can use their power and influence, their insight and compassion to lead people back to an understanding of who we are as human beings to create conditions for our basic human qualities of generosity, contribution, community, and love to be evoked no matter what.
🌱 We can lead people to create positive changes locally that make life easier and more sustainable, that create possibility amid global decline.
🌎 Whatever the problem, community is the answer.
🤝 Humans can get through anything as long as we’re together, and there is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.
🤷♂️ Who do you choose to be for this time?
💡 Are you willing to use whatever power and influence you have to create islands of sanity that evoke and rely on our best human qualities to create, produce, and persevere? 💫
For more, check out Margaret Wheatley’s talk “Islands of Sanity” from the Meanings Conference in 2017 .
But Did You Live? 