Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. — Leo Tolstoy
We live in a world of unparalleled wonder. We may not stop and look at it often enough, but the technological progress of the last 100 years is astonishing
Let’s run through some numbers.
- Global Poverty has been on the decline for decades and dropped below 10% for the first time ever in 2015
- The rate of violent crime and deaths from violence have declined significantly over time
- The number of people living in hunger has fallen by nearly half since 1990
- Global life expectancy has increased and is expected to continue growing
Technology, medical breakthroughs and agricultural innovation have all moved the needle on human life in a significant way.
And even culturally, we’ve seen significant shifts in the way we treat one another. War is significantly diminished across the globe. We’d much rather trade with one another than fight with one another.
But for all of the progress we’ve made, I believe there’s one area where we still lack: personal ethics.
It’s not that we don’t have them. Far more people don’t murder than do. More people pay their taxes than cheat. More people work honestly in their job than don’t.
The reason we’re all so shocked by the Bernie Madoffs or Paul Manaforts of the world is that their behavior is a rare extreme.
But we do see an ethical undercurrent to our culture that places the personal needs of the individual over the needs of others. We’ll probably never get rid of that completely, nor perhaps should we. We’re essentially talking about our survival instinct.
But dangerous things happen when we celebrate that instinct above all else. You see greed and manipulation emerge. People with the power or intelligence to use others do it, and according to a survival mentality, they’re doing a virtuous thing.
We need a new ethic for a new age. In a world where our survival is less up for grabs and we’re on the road to better controlling, if not outright conquering, disease, hunger and violence, we need to reassess our relationship to other people.
In one of the most famous theories of personal well being, Abraham Maslow laid out a system of understanding our human needs.
We’ll always need physical things like food and water. Next, we need security. It’s why humans eventfully stopped being nomadic and settled in one place. You could organize better defenses against enemies, store up foodstuffs and accumulate more tools to make life easier.
Next, we have social needs, essentially the need to belong. If you’re in the US, go to a public place on most Saturdays and look for jerseys. In most cases, you’ll find dozens of people identifying as part of a social clan. Our churches can be social groups, and the internet has opened up entirely new worlds for forming social identity.
The highest achievement on the pyramid is self-actualization. When Maslow was designing this, the self-actualization goal was probably a long shot for most people.
If you’re worried about putting food on the table or making sure you’ve got a roof over your head, self-actualization isn’t on the radar. But once you have a safe place to sleep and a full belly, you can start a new journey to discover yourself, your place in the world and what really makes you happy. The fly in the ointment is that even in a society where millions of us have reached some level of security, we’re still not empowering people to find meaning.
Ask yourself honestly, am I living a life I’m proud of? Am I improving the world for those around me? Is the work I do and the way I do it improving who I am and helping others grow?
For most of us, the answers to those questions are probably “sometimes”. For some, they might all be “no”. For the very rare few, you’ve got a string of yeses. If that’s you, congratulations. You’re crushing it. For the rest of us, there’s opportunity to develop towards our best selves.
Being your best self won’t necessarily earn you more money or fix a relationship. But it sure won’t hurt. And it will help you deal with the vicissitudes of life and feel better about the value you’re offering the world.
If we’re going to move beyond our basic survival instinct (a drive that served us well on the savannas but is less useful in the Whole Foods parking lot), we each have to take up that project individually.
So I challenge you, as I challenge myself every day. What decisions can you make today to become your best self? Can you share positivity to one more person? Can you contribute in your own unique way one more time than usual? Can you learn something new or challenge yourself to hold back on a bad habit?
For each of us that takes that challenge up as a personal project, the world can get a little brighter. And when being our best selves and contributing to our communities in a positive way becomes our new definition of right and wrong, I think we’ll all be happier with the world we live in.
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