Life Purpose and Social Transformation

This article is written for those of you who are concerned about what's going on in the world, who sense that we are in a planetary crisis and want to help. There is a movement of awakened planetary citizens looking for ways to bring about a new healthier society. I keep hearing from people who want to contribute to social transformation, but don't know how. I hope to help you find a way by broadening the way you think about helping the world. I want you to see how you can have an important effect on society by the way you live your life, and especially by following your deeper purpose in life.

The Planetary Crisis

I believe, as many of our leading thinkers do, that we are in the midst of a major historical transformation. By this I don't mean that society will by transformed overnight or in a few years; it may take hundreds. I mean that the degree of change will be all encompassing. The number of social problems we are currently confronted with is staggering: nuclear war, ecological decay, terrorism, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, violence in schools, corruption and deception in government. The list goes on and on. But it is not chance that all these things are happening now. We have come to the end of an era, and our old ways of doing business are no longer working.

For the last 3 or 4 hundred years we have lived in what is sometimes called the "industrial era." We have lived under a world view based on science, rational thought, and competition for power. (The competition for power has been going on for 5000 years.) Because of this world view, we have treated everything in our world as a machine to be analyzed and controlled. We have treated the natural world this way. We have treated other people and other nations this way. We have even treated ourselves this way. This has brought us tremendous gains in knowledge, freedom, and comfort, but it no longer works for our benefit. It's very success has brought about its own obsolescence.

The tremendous explosion of our technical power, our population, and our ability to exploit the earth faces us with a whole new set of issues which our industrial world view can't comprehend. That world view can't think in terms of limits or being part of a whole. It doesn't understand feelings or intuition. It has outlived its usefulness, and our continued attempts to apply it to our current problems are only making matters worse. Similarly our current lifestyle has outlived its day. This lifestyle of material consumption and personal ambition, which once made so much sense in fueling our drive toward mastery of our environment, is now contributing to the problems and dangers we face.

As a result our society is breaking down. This is causing tremendous stresses and dangers, and it is also allowing for the possibility of a transformation to a whole new social structure and world view which is appropriate to the current historical situation. Our collective psyche is erupting with signs and portents of this new way of being. We don't know what it will finally be, but we have hints that it will be built on a foundation of cooperation, interconnectedness, and an interest in the inner life, and that it will involve cultural diversity, human scale institutions, and reverence for the earth. In this new world, we won't discard all the advantages of science, analytic thought, and technology. Instead we'll integrate them with the new emerging values in a life-affirming synthesis.

What You Can Do

In this time of breakdown and transition, in this time of ferment and hope, many people feel concern, even passion; many people want to help, but don't know what they can do. This is because we have too narrow a view of what it means to contribute to social transformation. We think it has to be done through "political" channels—through canvassing or demonstrating or writing letters, through working for candidates or activist groups. We think that our ordinary lives have little to do with social change. We think that if we care, we ought to do more in our spare time, though few of us have any.

This is the old model of social change, which is accurate as far as it goes: If you want small changes, you work for reform through established political channels. If you want large scale change, you organize and demonstrate as an activist. These are both still important today, but the depth of change that is happening in this historical period is far beyond even that which has usually been envisioned by political activists.

It isn't just certain governmental policies that need to change; it isn't even just our political and economic system as a whole that needs to change, though it does. Far more than that is obsolete at this time. All our institutions and social structures are in transition--our schools, our businesses, our gender roles, our ways of relating to each other, the way we treat our bodies and emotions, the way we relate to the natural world, and ultimately our view of the nature of reality.

Since the level of social change is beyond our usual conceptions, the methods for contributing to change also can and must go beyond our usual methods. The social structures and ways of being which are changing as part of the ferment of our times are all highly interconnected, and everything we do in our lives contributes to and affects the larger direction of society. Everything you do that promotes a new, more appropriate way of being is a contribution to social change—from the way to relate to your kids to the products you buy, from the investments you make to the vacations you take, from the work you do to the way you care for your health.

Your Life Purpose

The most powerful way you can contribute to social transformation is by fulfilling your life purpose. I believe that each of us has a special function to perform in the world, based on our unique talents and personal qualities, our lifetime learnings, and our heartfelt concerns and passions. When you discover these gifts within yourself and create or uncover your purpose in life, you will have found the key to a meaningful, happy life and to making your greatest contribution to healing our planet.

I believe that if you are aware of the planetary crisis and concerned about the world situation, you will naturally find that your life purpose is related to planetary healing. It may not look like something "political." Its impact may not be obvious. But it will be the most valuable help you can give. After all, you will be using all of you. What could be more potent than that?

Social Movements

You may say, "The actions of one person can't change anything." And that might be true if done in isolation. But most of the positive actions of today are not done in isolation. Whatever your life purpose turns out to be, there are probably many other people making the same changes in their lives, and when enough people are moving in a certain direction, a movement is born.

There are movements of many different kinds, both organized and unorganized, some which are leading toward a new healthier society and some which are clinging to the old. I'm not just referring to political movements. There are social movements, religious movements, cultural movements of various kinds, and many currents in society which are not even called movements—from the new systems science to the burgeoning interest in consciousness, from the self-help movements to the rise of women, from ecological awareness to the emergence of a global sensibility.

So in asking what you can do to heal the planet, first ask what you already are doing that encourages a healthy society, then look around and notice what movement exists that embodies what you are doing. For example, suppose you have chosen to have a baby using natural childbirth methods. Or suppose you decide that your life purpose is to teach natural childbirth or to be a mid-wife. This means that you are already part of a significant social movement toward natural childbirth using Lamaze, the LeBoyer method, home births, etc. This is also part of a larger movement toward reconnection with our bodies and the natural rhythms of the earth. In order to become more consciously part of these movements, you might want to subscribe to a magazine, join an organization, attend workshops, etc. In this way you would be making even a larger contribution than just your personal choice of how to give birth.

But more importantly, you would also give yourself the opportunity to experience yourself as part of something larger. It wouldn't be so easy to doubt that you were making a contribution to the world. You could measure "your" contribution not by how much of a difference you alone were making, but instead by how much of a difference your organization, or your movement, was making. This is good practice in letting go of your ego and feeling your power as part of something greater. It is very empowering to measure your value in this way!

An Example

Let me be more specific. One of the significant positive currents of our time is a reawakening of an interest in the inner life. One of the characteristics of the outmoded industrial world view is that it finds value only in the objective, material world--the world of technology, possessions, power, and status. The subjective world--the world of emotions, of images, dreams, relationships, the entire consciousness curriculum--is often ignored, devalued, or assumed not to even exist. This has resulted in an overemphasis on material possessions, on domination of the natural world, and on bureaucracy. It has contributed to a lack of empathy and compassion for other people, other races, other nations.

The consciousness movement is part of a significant current of our times which involves a reawakening of interest in the subjective world, and which is pointing in the direction of a healthier balance between inner and outer realities. It includes psychotherapy, the various psychological self-help movements, inner-oriented health practices, spiritual disciplines, intuitive and artistic endeavors, and other pursuits, all of which are contributing to this rebalancing.

Let's suppose that you have discovered that your life purpose is to be a counselor or therapist, working with individuals and leading groups and workshops. Your interest in personal and spiritual growth leads you to become part of the personal growth and transpersonal psychology movements, as well as the larger movement of people interested in consciousness.

In addition to healing emotional pain and empowering people, your work as a therapist encourages people to look at their lives from a psychological and/or spiritual viewpoint. Your groups and workshops encourage self-exploration and the enhancement of the power of the mind. As part of the various psychological movements, your work is contributing to a renewed interest in the inner life. It may also help academic psychology to break free from its rigid concepts and bring people in general to question the closed assumptions of the industrial world view.

Making the Personal/Planetary Connection

Now you may ask, "This is all well and good, but what does it have to do with the issues I'm deeply concerned about—war and ecological destruction?" To look at this in a deep way, we must ask ourselves what forces are fostering wars and the destruction of the biosphere? There are many, of course, but at a psychological level, one of the main factors is that we in the developed nations are generally out of touch with ourselves and our deeper nature and not very open or compassionate towards other people and the natural world. Thus we can get few pleasures from genuine loving contact or community, from communion with nature, or from self-exploration. In place of these we seek ever more entertainment and security from material possessions, power, and status.

This never-ending search for material happiness leads us into economic competition and the building of a global economy, which is destroying our ecological support system. The need for power and status drives many nations into international aggression, paranoia, revenge, and ultimately war.

So if there were a world wide shift in values toward those encouraged by the consciousness movement, it would certainly help to reduce the threat of war and ecological destruction. Therefore your work as a therapist is contributing to this end. And you can measure your success partly by watching the growth of your movements (the spread of psychotherapy, the popularity of self-help books and groups, the tremendous interest in spirituality). This is a sign that you (plural) have the power to make important changes in the world. This is not to imply that inner growth is all that is necessary to change the world; changes are needed at all levels. But it has an important part to play.

In this example I have traced out the connections between one person's life purpose and important world issues. I encourage you do the same for yourself. What are the connections between your life purpose (or what you currently do) and the world or community issues which you care most about? You might, for example, trace connections between eating health food and ending the erosion of top soil, or between teaching creativity and ending racial oppression. The world is vastly interconnected in ways we do not normally see. We must raise our consciousness to guide us in this crucial work.

How to Expand Your Impact

You may say, "It's nice to think that what I'm already doing (or what I'd most like to do) is contributing to solving world problems, but it doesn't feel like enough to me. I want to do more. I want to see something more tangible." There are a number of steps you can take to expand the impact of what you do and to target it toward social transformation. These can be summarized as follows:

1. Understand the links between your work and world issues (discussed above).

2. Be consciously part of a movement. You can align yourself with a movement through the psychological act of identifying with it—owning it, taking it into your sense of self, caring about its future. You can also add to its vitality by participating in it—subscribing to a magazine, joining an organization, attending conferences, networking with like-minded people.

3. Work to include more and more people in your movement. You can help to encourage others to become a part of your movement through personal contact, by teaching or writing, by playing a leadership role in an organization, through public speaking.

4. Help others to see the links between your movement and world issues. Once you have gained an understanding of the impact of your work on various world issues, you can help to raise other people's consciousness about this. For example, in your groups you might discuss the connections between empathy, international understanding, and world peace.

5. Study the changes in social structures related to your movement and world issues. Of course, it takes more than just changes in consciousness to affect major world issues. It also requires changes in institutions, government policies, economic structures, value systems, etc. In understanding the links between your life purpose and your world concerns, it is also helpful to understand the changes in social structures that would help, and how your work might bring these about. For example, democratic world governance would be enormously helpful in alleviating the conditions for war, and our widespread fear and condescension toward people from other backgrounds is one of the stumbling blocks to this. Group psychotherapy, which teaches empathy with other people, can be used in a modified form to bridge gaps between people of different nations (as Carl Rogers has done).

It would also be exciting and useful to understand the changes in social structures which would enable your movement to gain momentum or which might result from your movement gaining momentum. For example, you might ask yourself: If the consciousness movement really made inroads into mainstream society, what changes in social structures might we be able to bring about? Would businesses be small and egalitarian? Would conflicts be decided by mediation rather than legal battles or political machinations? How would this affect international governance or ecological concerns?

Conclusion

If we view the world from a broad enough perspective, we can see that we have far more power to affect our future than many have thought. Your life purpose is the most effective vehicle you have for healing the planet. Follow your heart, develop your vision, and join with others in helping to transcend the planetary crisis and build a new society of love, cooperation, and reverence for the earth. 

I teach a class on finding Your Contribution to Transforming Society.