Two simple steps:
1. Be the change
2. Be proud of it
The first step is actually self evident. Mahatma Gandhi famously said: Be the change you wish to see in the world. Of course, easier said than done. The hard part is not ‘being’ the change but to project the change we want in the world to ourselves. Its difficult because its easier to find fault with others, blame some ‘them’, and, as I learnt sometime back, we are hard wired for ‘agentism’. So there’s always somebody else (not us) who needs to change to make our world happier, better place.
It tolls for thee. Our predisposition to suspect this somebody as source of problems leads us to find solution there. So we take ourselves out of the change equation and, send for whom the bell tolls!
The second part is really a corollary. It asks us to revolt against the tyranny of common sense. (Thanks Sir Ken Robinson for this phrase.) I believe that we fundamentally are what we desire to be. We get trained, conditioned and constrained to be something else. These constraints, conditioning, and training form the norms, the status quo. These cause us to be apologetic as we attempt to do right (whatever we think to be right, that is). And, these make us to fool ourself into rationalizing our compliant activities. Maybe we loathe to change because it would be construed as stupid. But maybe there’s a larger constituency waiting to be converts, waiting for one to change and be proud of it.
