One of the unique characteristics of humankind is our self awareness. What does this mean? It means that we have the mental capability to reflect on our own existence and behavior in relation to our surroundings. We are conscious to what we are and what we do.

This unique capability has served us well. We have been able to reflect intensely on our own weaknesses to survive in a complex world, using our self reflecting creativity to make instruments that strengthen our position. Our self awareness has hence always been self centered to serve our individual purpose. The fact that we were blessed with thought and self reflection while the rest of the living species were not  allowed us to play for ourselves a dominant role. We developed a natural nature to seek personal benefit at expense of our surroundings.

For hundreds of thousands of years this worked fine. The size of the human population on earth was insignificant so our selfish attitude remained unnoticed as nothing claimed responsibilities. We were only conciously confronted with our own attitude when we encountered other human self centered communities. Our intellect developed also tools and instruments to concur eachother.

Today the world population is so large and the effects of our self centeredness to significant that it affects our daily routines dramatically. We suddenly become aware that our self awareness cannot just be oriented to self preservation at the expense of everything else. We now become aware that self preservation is only possible if the rest is preserved as well. If we do not preserve our surroundings we end up terminating ourselves.

If in the past we just took intellectual responsibility out of self interest we now have to take responsibility for our sustainable existence. This in depth change in attitude affects our entire nature, individually but also in government and business. When in the past all responsibility was self centered it has now moved to a univeral external scope. We do not survive by taking it all but by saving it all. That is challenging!

When one thing changes in our environment it requires a whole set of new changes to remain in balance. That is the universal law that has created also the basis for the evolution of everything and even our own existence. Now that we are conscious to such basic facts we also understand the responsibility we have to change whenever we change anything just for the sake of our own sustainable progress and survival.

There two types of changes: the ones we can do something about and the ones where we can not. The ones that are beyond our control should never even worry us. They just occur (s.a. natural desasters). We can only react to the unexpected trusting on our intellectual capacity to adapt to ever changing circumstances. The changes that we do control ourselves provide us with the responsibility to consider them within the context of the whole. This should not prevent us from acting but remind us that action always requires further action to obtain true progress.

The responsibility we carry has a social and environmental component in which we encounter ourselves. Self awareness is now placed in the context of the whole and not the individual part making us all a servant leader in a universal mission of adaptive balance. When we now improve our surroundings we will improve ourselves.

What does this mean for you and me?

1. Be aware of your own actions and mentality. What is truly valuable to you? Remember: it is not that what you have that is significant, it is what you are and do. In everything you do value what it will contribute positively to your surroundings (human and nature). If you only encounter value for yourself don’t do it, you will eventually find it will have taken something from someone else or nature and you will be made responsible.

2. Business. Place your competences at service to humankind and the planet through issue driven vision. Remember that every change induces new changes. Be creative and innovative within this servant attitude that will eventually become the image that people will become loyal to.

3. Government. Stimulate your community to be servant by taking responsibility to themselves and their surroundings. This is the true economy of values, one that is expressed in health, vitality and purpose, not in money. Be facilitating by stimulating innovations applied to society instead of punishing or regulating mistakes from the past. Don’t patronize your community but help them to be self sufficient, responsible and progressive in sustainable multidimensional wealth.

So at an individual level: be servant, work for a servant company and vote for a servant party. Be responsible for all your choices, evaluate, adjust and be responsible again.

When we look around us (in fearful reality or through TV news) we see the human world, as we have known it in our post war generation, crumbling. In this intens process, caused by human actions and natural disasters, with some suspicion that somehow both are related to some extend, a lot of suffering, killing and drama can be observed or felt. Despite this I know that humankind will eventually come out strengthend in its evolutionary path, even if the population is decimated along the way. It is a necessary and impressive evolutionary process that contains as much pain as beauty.

To explain the path we all will follow and provide some hope to those who are in the middle of fear and chaos, I can only refer to my own personal deeper experiences. The story that I am about to describe is a personal one and I have called it “the rock”. It has nothing and yet everything to do with war, dictators, uprise or power struggles. It cannot be compared with the massive destruction and problems that occur in the Middle East and Northern Africa right now yet the same processes have been faught inside me with the same intensity yet inside my own spirit rather than within a community. I will explain to you how my intense vulnerability changed into the highest level of strength instantly and that I expect the same to happen with you, human communities and in the end the entire remaining humankind.

The rock

In 1994 I was top executive in Spain for a multinational when my first daughter was born. My marriage had been struggling badly right from the beginning and was only kept alive by my upbringing that one makes promises for life. In fact I married to create a basis for the foundation of a family but for some reason my wife never felt ready for the step. In 1994 finally I became father but our relationship had deteriorated to such an extend that in 1996 we decided that it would be better for all of us, including our daughter, that we seperated. That occured at the same time that my expat contract terminated and my employer suggested a job for me somewhere in the Far East.

For the first time I was truly confronted with the personal struggle to determine the essence of life. For over 20 years I’d been working on mypersonal carreer, developing myself as a hierarchical leader within the confinement of global organizations. My education and upbringing taught me that this was the right way to go about life, that financial stability was key as well as continuous personal growth. I had felt some competitive element in comparing the carreers of my fellow university students over the years with that of my own.

Now I had a daughter of nearly two years of age and the existential choice to make to leave Spain for a next step in my carreer, somewhere far away, or to stay close to my offspring and forget about my carreer. It became clear to me that I had not become father after years of matrimonial struggle to enjoy it at 10.000 miles of distance. Since my employer had no further requirements for me in Spain I decided to leave the company. So one day in spring in 1996 I found myself with my divorce papers in my hands, packing to leave the house that was included in my expat contract and a law suite to cancel my contract. I had to help my ex-wife and child to find a place to move to and one for myself too. My daughter would stay with my wife as this was explained to me as the normal situation in a divorce. My ex had demanded that her life style should not be affected by the separation so she took the furniture and moved to a large apartment with a large monthly sum of money to be supplied by me. I did not want to live too close to her as my feelings were hurt but not too far away because of my desired relationship with my daughter.

In the process of looking for a small studio to move to myself I drove through the countryside outside Madrid when my personal sadness became somehow intensified. A lot of important, for me unpredented decisions had been taken, all in a short span of time. As I drove further away from Madrid the consequences of those decisions also became more and more evident. I left behind a wife, a child, a job, an income, a future, a house……an entire life!

My suffering became so intens that I could not drive anymore. I found a place to park the car and walked into the countryside. I was looking for a place that no one could see me in the macho land and sat down on a large rock in the field. I cried and cried.

I felt so lonely, so lost, so vulnerable, so hurt. I had lost everything, I had left it all behind. My mind and soul was black, tormented with self pitty, hate, angre, dispare and sorrow. I blamed the world, my wife, myself, everything and everyone. I screamed, hit the rock with my hands and feet, and cried even more. What was I going to do? My life was suddenly so empty, so insignificant, such a waste. I felt so weak, so poor, such a failure.

After what appeared a lifetime, even though I had no notion of time at all, I felt tired. The curtain of tears had tried up and my head was heavy, my body hurt, when suddenly I noticed something strange. I became aware of the intense blue of a lake in front of me. I had not even seen the lake before but now it caught my attention very strongly. Wow, that blue! I opened my eyes a bit more and felt some kind of strange joy and energy enter my soul. That blue was so beautiful! I couldn’t believe that I had not seen that before! My heart felt with some strange errotic feeling of love as my eyes now concentrated on the intense olive green of the vegetation on the hills. On the other side of the lake the castle of El Escorial was bathing in sunlight and the sky had no clouds. A fish jumped out of the water and created rings, an eagle circled the blue sky and it was warm on that rock. I couldn’t believe how happy I suddenly felt, I could cry of joy and intense happiness.

I realised that everything I needed to continu my life was sitting on that rock! I had experienced the deepest sorrow and most intense happiness right there on that stone in the countryside. I had gone through a process of attachedmet to old values, the pain of letting go, voluntarily and emotionally, to come out finally a new person. I had let go of the material world to open up to the spiritual world, the world of intense being. This was totally new to me. I now became aware that the circle was complete, my eyes and my heart had opened to a new life. A life where the caring and loving is much more important than the having. On that rock I had everything I needed in life and I discovered my purpose. A purpose that was addressed to contribute value to my surroundings, to help, guide and assist whenever my attention is demanded.

My vulnerability had brought me in contact with my authentic inner strength, my individual connection with the energic world of the universe, and my mission. Whenever I now need to make a choice I just think of that rock that I left behind and that has become the ancor of my life. My choices, no matter how complex are always in the light of the beauty of our connection with our surroundings, humans and nature, with a mission of preservation and sustainable progress. In that now I find permanent joy and motivation.

After a second similar experience seven years later, again nearly two years after the birth of my second daughter I had learned the lesson definitely. Now I am father of two daugthers, take care of them as a single parent and go through a servant lifestyle addressing the huge problems of the world with determination, cooperation and purpose with all those who have stepped off their own rock and join me in the process of addressing the true beauty of life.