Reimagining Our World — Episode 3

If we don't like the sort of world we live in, we are not stuck with it. At any moment we can choose to have a different future. The sort of world we live in, the sort of local, national, and global society we become, our ability to tackle global challenges and meet the needs of humanity effectively, all depend on choices and decisions we make.

Volition which is the intentional exercise of free will choice is the tool that we utilize to show up differently. By harnessing and utilizing our capacity for free will choice, we can change our outworn mindsets and dysfunctional habits and replace them with new, constructive, and life-affirming ones.

We humans have the distinction of having this amazing gift -- the gift of choice -- at our disposal. The mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds are bound by the laws of nature in ways we are not. We have both the power to conceptualize and imagine and different world as well as the power of free will to transform that vision into reality.

Viktor Frankl describes the power of free will as a "spiritual freedom." He says because of it no one can every rob us of our independence of mind: in any given moment we get to choose our reaction to circumstances no matter how awful they are. He also says that this power of free will imbues our lives meaning and purpose.

A really good example of the impact a constructive exercise of free will can make on a whole nation, can be found in the story of Nelson Mandela and his wife Winnie. Both were subject to the atrocities of the apartheid regime in South Africa. Each of them made different choices about how to perceive their plight and their white oppressors and ultimately about how to react to them. Nelson Mandela ultimately chose the path of forgiveness and reconciliation while Winnie Mandela got trapped in a cycle of hatred and violence.

We are not victims of the Covid-19 pandemic or the economic recession it has triggered, nor are we victims of climate change. We can choose to set aside our old habits of nationalism, xenophobia, racism, sexism, isolationism, and political polarization and create a world based on C3s: consultation, cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity. We can recognize that we are interdependent and interconnected as one, rather than behaving as though each nation and people is self-sufficient and can go it alone despite all the evidence to the contrary.