This month’s column results from my wife, Carole, asking me to “watch this.” This was a short video on her computer showing two young children brilliantly and inspirationally singing, “You Raise Me Up.” I was dumbstruck. Their song immediately took me to many places. I was reminded of the wisdom of the saying that children lead the way. And that art leads the way.
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The video’s sponsors, LittleThings.com, noticed the amazing talent of these two children, their stage presence, and the synergy that frequently occurs when one plus one makes much more than two. Check out the video. Where does it take you?
Another document that Carole shared with me, by the philosopher Ervin Laszlo, took me to the divisions and boundaries we put up among ourselves that make us feel lonely and victimized. Those frequently artificial walls also drive competition when it’s not helpful, and incline us to think of some, maybe many, other people as unworthy of our care.
In points five and six of his “Ten Point Credo of an Evolved Consciousness” Laszlo notes:
“5. The separate identity I attach to my fellow humans is a convenient convention to facilitate my interaction with them. My family and my community are just as much ‘me’ as the cells and organs of my body. There are only gradients of intensity in the relations that distinguish individuals from each other and from the world, no absolute divisions and boundaries. There are no ‘others’ in the world: We are all dynamic, coherent, and wholeness-oriented systems in the world. We are part of the world and so part of each other.
6. Collaboration, not competition, is the royal road to the wholeness and coherence that hallmarks healthy systems in the world. Collaboration calls for trust, empathy, and solidarity. Comprehension, conciliation, and forgiveness are not signs of weakness but signs of courage. Harming others, even under the banner of patriotism and national or corporate interest, is a mistaken intention. I am part of whomever I harm, and so I harm myself.”
If we remember these things, we can more deeply:
• Appreciate those who have provided us with the things we need and want
• Interact with our teammates as we collaborate to serve our customers, both inside and outside our organization
• Listen to our internal and external customers so we can better serve them
• Give back to the larger community within which we operate
• Help those we don’t agree with, know, or like by remembering we are all one family
In closing, may we all adopt the 10th point of Laszlo’s credo:
“10. I recognize my responsibility for evolving my consciousness, and through my example, for helping the evolution of consciousness in others. We have been part of the aberration of human consciousness in the modern world, and we need to be part of the evolution that overcomes that aberration. Living and working toward this goal is my duty, as a conscious member of a conscious species in a conscious cosmos.”
That’s all, folks. May we all keep listening to the children.
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