In many visionary and transformative business encounters the question arises why it is so difficult to get people to be cooperative and working together towards higher social or ecological/environmental goals? Despite many attempts visionary people get frustrated because they may get people around the table, open up interesting dialogues but never seem to get to the massive organization of  the pursuit for a true higher purpose. At one stage invariably self interest seems to become dominant again in such process making the whole thing fall apart or take a turn away from its original purpose.

We invariable then end up talking again about the column of values that I describe in my book “secretes of true welfare” (in Dutch only, soon available in English) and that I now share with you in English.

Column of values: identity (I am), safety, equality, cooperation, trust, social responsibility, ecological responsibility, universal responsibility (we are).

Column of counter values: lack of identity, insecurity, unequality, self interest, disconfidence, greed, lack of responsibility.

The conflict between those columns is one that we struggle with ourselves, our personal integrity towards our life, but also all kinds of societies that we become active in during that life. I refer to the cultural society that we live in, the business society in which we work or the religious society that we may be part of. They all have to deal with the conflict between the two columns in their own structure and establishment.

It would be far too much to address the entire complexity of the column of values in one blog entry so I will address them one by one starting right at the beginning, the authentic individual.

Column of Values:

The column in essence is very easy to understand but in present day society extreemly difficult to develop. Why? Well when we look at the top of the column we encounter the global social and environmental responsibilities that we all carry. Everyone understands those higher values from an idealistic point of view. We however never seem to break through idealism into practical persuit and structural organisation around those values. The problem lies not in our awareness but in the stack of values underneath.

We see there three basic levels of individual values that we need to get firmly in place on a personal level and two sets of values that are need to bridge our individual identity with others to reach our for the highest forms of sustainable humanity.

The very first level of those individual values is the most significant as it creates the solid foundation for the rest. Without this first level firmly in place the rest of the stack will be impossible to develop. Here it is:

First level: Authentic, Unique, Personal Identity (I am)- Every human being is born as a unique creature of mind, spirit and matter. We each have our own purpose to fullfil in the complexity and the adventure of life. Each of us gets to a stage of asking ourselves the intimide question: “who, what, why am I?”. The question is proper to our intellectual being, a factor that distinguishes us from other life forms. We can ask ourselves what purpose we serve in life? That is a disturbing question as it suggests that we may have a more significant position in the universal creation as most other creatures never get troubled with such thoughts and just focus on survival. Why else are we blessed or cursed with self awareness and the ability of intelligent thought?

The question of “who am I” is often eliminated out of our lifes as we have hung our existance up in trees of hierarchies. There is always someone who decides for us: our boss, a politician, government, a judge, a policeman, a parent, our bank account. In many societies the individual has robotised its existance by assume simple truth of organised human life: I have to get up at 7, go to school or work, marry when I am around 25, stop work when I am 65, buy a house, have children, make sure I have a job, buy a car, go on holiday a couple of times per year, pay taxes, etc. And society has robotised as well by giving everyone one or more numbers and refering to people as citizens, consumers, tax payers, etc.

Who questions anything? Why would you question everything? If you are the same as everyone else what distinguishes you of any other person?

Many people develop then their identity around what they possess. They refer to what they are by telling about their job, the size of the car or the newest TV set.

Most people in modern capitalist society are what we call “me too” people, meaning that opinions and securities are formed around “what others say”. The identity is created by what one has, not what one is. A large car, a house, the clothing, the amount of money one can spend, etc. All external signs of identity that have nothing to do with inner wealth of a positive self image and rich spiritual life.

All one has one can loose. If you take away all possession from the person, what will remain? A lot of insecurity. Take away the job, a social welfare or pension, i.e. the security of an amount of money at the end of the month, how will the person react? Panic?

The things people tend to value are external. But external things need to be made and kept in place and just those are the elements that create the higher level problems s.a. environmental polution, social unrest, etc. Hence, if we want to address the high level issues of morality and global values we need to start with the moral values inside ourselves, each one of us. Now that is difficult.

You find that people who are deprived of their external securities feel emotionally naked and go through a person crisis, often a burn out or worse. They get in touch with their own inner emptiness and lack of self esteem. All those people want to get back as quickly as possible to a material wealthy position in order to feel happy again. The entire economy of a nation or a business is built around this.

People become a robot in a system. They are not their authentic selves but instrument to a surroundings that has conditioned them to act according to the rules of that society. One has become a number, not a human being anymore.

That has been the case for many decades now in the entire Western world and is also happening in China now. But it is changing. Crisis after crisis is touching now people individually. The very first reaction is one of fear as chaos upsets their lives. People try to get back to their comfort zone. Governments did by pumping loads of money into a corrupt system.

As crisis keep reappearing people start to think again for themselves. The get in tough with their authentic selves, not their greed and external wealth. Getting people to feel rich and happy without any material wealth in these times is tough. People just want more and more, not because they need it but out of fear of losing it. So when they loose it all the first reaction is of fear and insecurity but then awareness appears in the form of enlightenment.

Suddenly people notice the emptiness inside and discover the power of the spirituality that they have neglected for so long. Some people are overwhelmed by it, some negatively others positively. But what everyone who goes through this process discovers is his or her true self, whether they like what they encounter or not. It is this true and authentic self that gives you a drive and purpose in life and can only be discovered when digging deep into the emotions of being. Only then people realize they represent their own universe and become capable of building their column of true values to reach out to a universe full of enlightend people.

The authentic self is the unique identity that is the fundament of your life. It can be found deep inside you. It represents what you truly ARE, not what you have.

Next blog: second level of the column of values – safety

“No, of course not my dearest. You are a very unique and special child. You are perfectly alright and I love you very much”.

Yet the problem is temendously real. Schools in the western world are preparing and judging children on their potential to perform in a materialistic system. It is not strange at all that many of the children do not seem to comply. They are not robots, they are human beings.

Our materialistic world wants humans to perform optimally in a financial based organization. It is money that reigns. At the earliest age the children learn about numbers and language, the basics of a numeric, binary, two dimensional, yes/no system.  They donot learn about creativity, self sufficiency, spirituality, relational sensitivity, feelings and emotions or self learning as equivalent key factors for successful growing up.

We have given too much power to government to decide what is good for our children. Why did we do that? It is a consequence of a money based system. We call this emancipation, the ability of being economically independent from eachother, but in reality it is breaking up families. And we never became independent, we placed our faith in the economic system.

Of course women and men have the same rights to develop their individual independency. But in a money system such independence represents total individualism where there is hardly room for the children. Both parents need to work for money and the kids are being educated by external parties for money. Love and care has been eliminated along the way. And these represent true values that cannot be expressed in money or be taken over by and individualistic, robotized society.

In a value based system men and women are equal but certainly not the same. The role of each in society and a family is highly differentiated.

The sum of all the issues around children, s.a. a robotized educational system, lack of family warmth, polution and unhealthy nutrician, lack of spiritual guidance, etc. cause numerous psychological and physical disorder to appear. One out of five children are labeled with something that in essence disqualifies them at an early stage from a normal future in a system where performance rules. We have reached the dramatic stage that the system of creating robots our of human beings is producing so many defects that the systems is unsustainable and obsolete.

The children with some kind of disorder enter in a special support program in which they are even further stigmatised with “something that is wrong” with them. A lot of the system is based around the principles of the IQ. However this is only one minor part of the full potential of a child. The EQ (emotional), SQ (spiritual), AQ (awareness) and various more, are very strong energetic components of the human nature that require equal attention. The problem is that they can not be measured through a simple multiple choice test and valued in a ranking. Someone of a high IQ (say 144) would be better equiped to address life than someone with a low IQ (say 72). That is not true. The amount of psychological disorders in high and low IQs are evident and documented. So are the successes of low IQ people which seems to contradict the stearing mechanism used by schools and governments.

To be adecuately equiped for conducting a balanced and purposeful life IQ is not at all significant on its own. A powerful combination of spiritual, emotional, physical, energetic and other factors place the person in the complexity of the diversity of a human life. Knowledge absorbtion as indicated by the IQ makes absolutely no sense if it is not applied in a practical environment. Learning needs to be fed with purpose through experiences and selfreflection as well as creativity. Simply learning what is commonly accepted as a truth does not challenge the individual to determine the truth for himself. Creativity helps to challenge the existing order by giving it a fresh thought without prejudice and learn by autoreflection and self awareness within the context of time and space of that moment, location and surroundings.

Learning does not provide progress at all, creativity and practical applied knowledge in a diversity of situations does. It generates new knowledge. Children need not just memorize common knowledge but apply it to the integral complexity of life as they go through the adventure of living it. They need to receive answers on their questions, not just about 2 + 2 is 4 but also when 2 + 2 is 0 or 5. They need to learn about themselves and how to interact in groups, not just by sitting still and listening to the teacher but also understanding the complexity of being a unique human being among many other unique human beings.

Our current scholing system is life threatning for our children. That is the theme of a conference in Holland. It refers to the fact that the educational system kills the full potential of a child to conduct a purposeful life. It also refers to the environment where education is taking place, that is so poluted that it is often irresponsible for parents to send the children to school at all.

“Daddy? Is there something wrong with me?” is such open question of a brilliant young mind who questions the system that pretends to classify him or her. No, my child, there is nothing wrong with you, on the contrary. There something wrong with the system. Just trust your daddy because I am proud of you, I love you very much and make it my life mission to challenge the system. I will stand beside you and help you develop your own unique, authentic and brilliant life without limitations. Because you deserve it and are worth it!

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Have look also at:

Ken Robinson – schools kill creativity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Sugata Mitra – can kids teach themselves? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRb7_ffl2D0

Left/right wing politics is outdated. It reflects the old world of industrialization where the left had to defend the rights of the working class and the right vowed for the business economies and religions. The middle way became popular in the last couple of decennia as an electorially safe no mans land. But this lacks colour, any public point of recognition let alone charismatic leadership. It is mediocre and tastless.

Even dictatorship is down the drain as young people get educated through internet and stand up against it. Politics as we know it……is dead. Money does not represent value anymore, gunpowder does not either, the powerful are those without power, they are the masses and they are powerful. Just now however the masses need guidance, need true leadership! Not what is being offered by the current world political, business and banking leaders. No, that leadership is dead, unaccepted, disputed, untrusted and blamed for all the problems we face today. This despite their combined efforts to keep going as long as it can. It will all collaps further and needs to collaps. Unfortunately, before it collapses no other leadership will be tolerated and everything is focused on maintaining the living dead. This will not last long. In Egypt it took a few days, in Libya it may take months, in China years just like in the USA and Europe.

But when collaps finally occurs new leaders stand up, often enlightened and visionary leaders that offer a new future. But also dangerous leaders that blame people for the current circumstances and offer ways back to some safe place in the past.

We are entering an era of political redefinition. The old ways are dead, the new to be defined. That phase after the crash of a system is a chaotic one. We see it occur all around us in the world (Egypt, Lybia, Tunesia, Arabia even China is worried). As I mentioned before….it is a global transformation through an in depth global crisis. The redefinition phase is extremely volatile.

While everyone at one stage will accept the collaps of an obsolete system the redefinition of a new system has many fathers and mothers. In chaos many still remain in a situation of greed, agression and misery. But some will stand out of the chaos and promise a better situation. They show charisma, a vision, a dream …….. a responsibility! But where various are charismatic at the same time, big struggle appears. Who do we follow? Will the human world break up in fragmented views or learn for once to be a global species with a universal higher purpose that does not allow fragmentation anymore?

The key to success of the new political leader: Authentic sense of Universal Responsibility.

That is what our current politicians lack totally:  The sense of responsibility! They reason out of self or party interests and not out of a collective higher purpose and stand point. After world war II politicians and political parties defended a cause. Nowadays no causes are defended anymore. All political activities and programs look the same. The defend the past and themselves. No one offers change, they do not dare in fear of losing their conservitive supporters.

Extremists can take the lead temporary through the easy blaming of people in times of crisis but only offer hatred and no solutions. The other politicians or parties don’t dare to take a standpoint and defend it. The have become mediocre, out of these times, old fashioned, self centered and conservative, no matter what colour they say they are or represent.

We all deserve better.

The entire world is in crisis, not only financially but in everything: food, intellectual, spiritual, educational, water, pollution, mobility, you name it…… We are educating our children to perform as robots in a system. We teach them in poluted environments. We grow older but sicker. We are intellectually blessed but do not use it. We have grown stupid and selfish but cannot finance our selfishness anymore. We allow fellow humans to suffer and die all around the world. It is over!

The new politics are not left wing, not right wing, not even through the middle or even a dictator. The new politics defines key sustainable responsibilities, through enlightenment and idealism but with pragmatism and sense of progress and organization. The new politics accepts cultural diversity and defines new cultures through it. The new politics defines true values and organizes communities around it. It does not care about money but valuable co-hesion, teamspirit and the common higher purpose of the community. The new politics is not democratic but higher purpose driven, sustainable,  highly spiritual and for everyone, not just a few.

New politics does not exist yet but is about to be born!