I used to think that my job was to save the world, one speech, one article, one act at a time. Instead I sat at home, resentful, angry, fearful and wondering why nobody saw how brilliant I was. My life was unmanageable and yet I tried to fix the lives of others. I have tried being "smart". I have tried being a cute. I have tried being manipulative and dishonest and pushy. I have tried them all, and I got nowhere.

Humility has not come to me easily, I had to gain it through pain. But today I have just enough of it to play my part as I can. What is my part? For now, to add my voice, my heart and my hands to a growing movement of people who recognise the need for a global paradigm shift and are willing to work for it. I do not speak as an academic nor a journalist, though I have credentials in both, but from my own experience. This experience tells me that wisdom is different from knowledge, and that the former comes from having a clear motive (based on love, community and sustainability) and coming together to work towards it.

Through reaching out for help and being willing to listen to ideas and to take actions that I once thought useless, insane or inane, I have begun to put my own life in order. Now I believe it can be done on a broader scale. The principles of love, tolerance, honesty, patience, kindness, humility and patience don't just work on individuals, they work on communities. I reached out for help and my life got better. If we all reached out to those we currently consider to be our enemies or simply too different or distant from us to matter, our problems would not only appear less serious, they would simply begin to melt away.

What follows are my musings on these ideas. I do not claim to have the answers. No individual does. But I do wish to become a more integrated member of the movement to discover a new way of living and a new way of being.