THE CHANGES IN US

The birth of a new world

Chen Zong

We’re living in two worlds simultaneously; one’s an order of things that’s crumbling before our eyes, and another one a new world now struggling to be born.

The question is deeper than “What do we do now?” If all we do is think in terms of treating symptoms, we’re stuck in a constant game of whac-a-mole. If we take a larger look at what’s happening in the world, we realize the more important question is this: “Who do we have to be?” What are the facets of personality that will enable us to endure these chaotic times and even to transform them?

The world we see is simply a reflection of the people we have been. We need to evolve from homo sapiens to homo divinicus, from creatures metaphorically hugging the ground to beings of such capacity for love that it gives us wings.

The barriers to love that stand in front of our hearts - those less than functional aspects of our personality we had pushed to the back of the drawer figuring we might deal with them some day but knowing deep down we probably never would - those are blind spots behind which there are pools of light just waiting to pour all over us.

Ways we deal with situations that improve on ways we dealt with the same kinds of things before; places we’re open where we had been closed before; patterns we’re changing because we realize they weren’t working. Such changes are miracles in and of themselves. They represent fundamental shifts in who we are and how we face the world, and from that will emerge new ways to impact it. People we meet we would not otherwise have met. Situations for good we would not otherwise have experienced. Creative opportunities we would not otherwise have known.

Those subtle and not-so-subtle shifts are generators of new possibilities for ourselves and others. We’re waiting for things to happen in life, when life is simply waiting for us. The universe is always ready to dance; we’ve just been sitting it out too much. 

Whoever we are and wherever we are, new worlds await when we open the doors we had previously shut, tear down the walls we’d constructed in front of our hearts, and choose to see the beauty that has always been there.

Life is beautiful. Our eyes have simply been shut. And when they open it will be a new world.

We don’t have to make a choice between savvy and sophisticated about a world gone mad, and gloriously grateful for a world that can be so endlessly beautiful it brings tears to our eyes. There’s not a choice to be made - only a paradox to be recognized and responsibility to be accepted. For every point at which the world has gone mad, it’s simply life crying out for us to be the people and do the things that will make it right. The world will tell you you’re a crazy person to think it’s possible. Don’t crumble; just prove them wrong.

What is greatness if not the emergence of something extraordinary that had not been present in the world before? The universe is like a GPS; whenever you take the wrong turn, it will recalibrate your route. There are solutions to every problem that now plagues the world. What is needed is that we become the people capable of discerning our part in solving the problem, and capable of executing the plan. Difficult? Oh yes. It isn’t easy giving birth to yourself 2.0, much less the world 2.0. But both are possible, and so worth it. And that’s what makes life the creative adventure that it is. Some want to pioneer outer space. That’s cool. But there’s so much undiscovered space right here, within us now and just waiting to be born into the world.