ATD V-2 Video #13:

Where Do We Go From Here? In Blessed Unrest and Action Once we take a personal stand to change the dream of the modern world, the question becomes: now what? where do I start? Well when people ask, "What can I do?", that's really the first signal of intention that you're gonna do something, so that's really the right place to start. And then I think it's a matter of really educating yourself and trying to understand what the issues are, what the world is facing, what it means in your community or whatever is particularly impotant to you, and to find what your personal gifts are and your own passion, what you most care about, that you know, because we defend what we love In looking at taking action, there are three areas that might be useful to consider. First, what can I do in my personal life, right where I work and live? I think... to.... to... to... and to... what... that... We need to demand of our governments that they step forth and take action. But even more important is what each one of us does. What we do in our businesses, what we do in our communities, and what we do in our personal lives. Another area of action is communication: using the power of our words to engage others in seeing and creating new possibilities before us; speaking out to friends, family and co workers - in our own community as well as to those in the halls of power. All.. are important first... isolated... A third arena is collective, cooperative action. We know we cannot do this great work alone, and the good news is we don't have to. I think collaboration is other critically important strategy right now and it's something that seems to have finally entered the culture. Because among us the intelligence is a lot greater than any one single individual, and no matter how brilliant that the person is. As we seek friends and partners in this do-it-yourself-together project, we can look to an example from nature. There's a moment in the life of a caterpillar when it begins to eat more and more. It becomes a voracious consumer, and eats many times its own weight in food. It eventually becomes bloated and immobile, and at that very moment inside the caterpillar there are these tiny cells waking up. The biologists call them imaginal cells. These cells keep popping up and joining together as clusters. The clusters become strings of imaginal cells. And at this point, well before the cells are a majority, the imaginal cells have become the genetic director of the whole caterpillar. The rest of the caterpillar's cells collapse into a kind of nutritive soup, which feeds the emergence of the unpredictable miracle that is a butterfly. Just as the imaginal cells help transform the caterpillar into a butterfly, we can be the change agents who help bring forth a just, sustainable, and fulfilling world. We may find ourselves in a particular state, a state that could be called Blessed Unrest. "Blessed Unrest" is a state where somebody sees, knows fully well where they are. what's going on around them, what the mechanisms are that keep us where we are, and yet sees a future that we all want to go to, and has the ability to create possibilities for holding that future as something that inspires their life. Blessed unrest is the willingness to keep showing up day after day, moment after moment, in spite of how uncomfortable it is. It's... of... in.... completely... It's not like "gotta do something." It's more like "I want to do something." Yes, we will take action; we'll be impelled to get out, to do things but equally as important is that we will become something - we'll become an instrument of something being able to work through us. Every single one of us can do something to make a difference. You can, you can, you can, you can, I can. God Bless you.