What is at the Heart of YOUR Calling?

 You feel this call to make the world a better place, but what is truly at the root of that calling?   

This post is about getting to the heart of why it is that you feel this urge to make the world a better place--whether as  a philanthropist, a social entrepreneur, an advocate or a change agent of any kind. 

Why is this important?  Getting in touch with the psychological and cultural roots of your own calling can help you be more effective at connecting with others and bringing people together around new approaches to complex problems where we have gotten stuck in hyper-partisanship and political division.   

The psychological roots of your calling

 Abraham Maslow and many other psychologists have noted that human beings are called to serve something larger than ourselves.    Unfortunately, not all of us are able to clearly hear that calling, or have the resources to respond to it effectively.  That's one of the greatest sources of being out of alignment, of long term unhappiness as we go through our lives.  If you're reading this, chances are already aware of feeling a calling to contribute to a better world--and that's a gift in itself.    But not everyone has thought as much about the deeper sources of their urge to contribute to a better world.  Human needs psychology offers a helpful window into this, identifying three innate human drives for self-actualization which help to power our calling to make the world a better place

Your Calling Might Also Have Cultural Roots: Worldviews and You

A worldview is a set of values and beliefs that each individual uses to make sense of the world around them. Your worldview typically has cultural and psychological components.

There are all kinds of ways to categorize world views.

One helpful approach has three main categories for world views:

• Traditional: shaped by religious faith and cultural tradition
• Modern: shaped by rational inquiry, the scientific method, efficiency in economic production etc.
• Post-modern: shaped by a desire to address oppression and inequity on a systemic basis, and grounded in a critique of traditional and modern social constructs for their role in perpetuating oppression and human suffering

As You Answer Your Call, What Would it Look Like To Appreciate and Integrate the Strengths of Different Worldviews?

“We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”    -Albert Einstein

The world is on fire—we have never been more in need of a new greatest generation of change agents, ready, willing and able to stretch themselves to find lasting solutions to increasingly entangled problems, from climate change to homelessness.

Integrating the most powerful strengths of seemingly competing world views is fundamental to breaking through polarization and political stalemate on so many complex challenges where we are otherwise gridlocked and stuck.

Which particular elements are already part of your own personal weave as a change agent?

What other stands of thought, of culture, of perspective, would make the fabric of your work as a change agent even stronger?

Where are You Starting From--What's Your Worldview?

Try this online survey from the Institute for Cultural Evolution to get insight into your own worldview, and how it relates to the perspective that you are bringing to your calling to make a better world.