A Beautiful Future through Cooperation
This morning's musing is on the state of cooperation in our world now, and how much potential there is for more cooperation - better, easier and new ways of cooperating - that can create a beautiful future.
Do you ever pause to think about what role cooperation plays in your life? As with all important topics, this is the first step: looking deeply. Do you view your family life as a cooperative effort? If you have a partner/spouse or roommate, do you see your contributions to your home life as cooperation or something else?
What about jobs? How many people see their jobs as cooperation towards a shared goal? That is the whole point of working together - to achieve a larger outcome than we could achieve alone. But do we really feel like that on a daily basis? From our real life conversations, it seems many people do not. They don't feel fairly valued or recognized for their contributions, and I believe value + cooperation go hand in hand. Within the confines of our current systems, creating a truly cooperative culture in any organization is a rare feat.
Yet, despite the challenges of cooperating, most of us keep showing up and attempting to cooperate the best we can with what's available to us now. I believe that's because it's in our true nature as humans. It's how we made it this far.
I've also come to believe that true cooperation takes a base level of stability, peace and love within us. I've felt it personally, and I've observed it countless times. It's why it's more difficult for people to cooperate in times of great fear or suffering. We can do it, sure, but it's not the fullest expression of our capabilities.
Humanity is filled with immense potential, and our future is filled with infinite possibilities - some beautiful and some not. The thing I know for sure is that we will only get to the beautiful possibilities where humanity is thriving, if we cooperate in new and better ways. That means looking at our individual perspectives on cooperation and how we want to see our contributions used in the world. And it means more people need to be working together to innovate and create ways that unlock our cooperative potential beyond the relatively few options that exist today in our current 'economy'.
This work on expanding cooperation and how we value contributions lights me up and gets me excited for a bright future. If you feel the same way, then reach out and let's cooperate!
