Nonviolent Communication Part 3 Marshall Rosenberg

If you take a look at the last 8000 years through the eyes of Teilhard de Chardin, the priest and the paleontologist, he sees a rapid movement back to a more natural way, he calls it Christ-consciousness, but my Palestinian friends call this Islam, and anyway, all of them see us as moving back to what is really what we know that the good life is enriching life contributing to people's wellbeing. It's not competeing and winning, it's being conscious we're all created out of the same energy, nobody can benefit at somebody else's expense, so our economy which is it's success is measured by wheteher the rich get richer and the poor get poorer we're coming to see that that's not gonna meet anybody's needs. When I ask people all over our planet in my work to think of something they did recently, that enriched somebody's life, and anybody can usually think of it, although it takes a while, 'cause we everyday do so many things that do that' so part of us, that we don't think of it, you know we say we give verbal greetings and they're designed to connect in a pleasant way with people, we cook meals for people, we do touch them in ways we get nourished. So very often it takes a while before people can answer this question, but then they get something in mind that they've done for somebody in the last 24 hours. Now I say: "Focus your attention on how you think that enriched their life. In terms of their needs. What needs of theirs were met how do you think that left them feeling? When people start to imagine and you can see a beam come out on their face, in their eyes, and you say: "How do you feel right now, when you realize that you did something that had that impact on people?" And people say: "Oh, I feel good. I feel happy, I feel delighted." Then I ask them this question: "Do any of you know anything that's more fulfilling than to do that, to use the power we have in a way that contributes to people's wellbeing? And that's that question all over the planet, and nobody has ever said to me that: "Yeah, if you get a Lexus that's better, or if you...you know... if you get these kind of culturally induced rewards that that's better!" NO, people say, the most fulfiling thing is to contribute to people's wellbeing. Well, that's play then, that's the most enjoyable play that we human beings engage in: to contribute to people's wellbeing. Now sometimes that play can involve hard work. Because I may work very hard to do something that contributes to people's wellbeing. Sometimes I travel a long way across the world to offer something to people that has enriched my life. But it's play when my full focus of attention is on why I am doing it. I am not doing it for money, i'm not doing it to get a positive reportcard I 'm doing it 'cause something that has increased joy in my life, it's joyful to share it with others it's a fun game. And it's the most fun game I've ever found: contributing to people's wellbeing. I'm really confident that that's the most fulfiling game we human beings will ever find. So Teilhard de Chardin sees a rapid evolution he just sees this last 8000 years as just a temporary snag in our evolution where some things let us to get culturally ignorant and to get involved in violence and competition... So it's just an evolutionary phenomenon, and he sees a rapid movement back to the more natural consciousness. Well, I agree with him, that it's happening and I think it's rapid, but my not being a paleontologist I don't think in terms of tens of thousands of years I have a granddaughter, I would like to see as speeded up. We are living on a planet where we have enough resources to meet everybody's needs we have enough food so that it isn't necessary for millions to starve. We have the medicines that could be preventing millions from dying of diseases. So it's only the consciousness that we need to alter, and there is a rapid movement toward the evolution of this consciousness, I just want us to do it faster. *