Compromise contamination corruption
There come multiple points in one’s life when we are offered a significant choice with many paths.
The first choice is easier. It might bring you towards your desires faster, with more cash, fame, glory.
The second choice is harder. It means that you refuse to compromise on the integrity of what you are creating, refuse to violate your own integrity, refuse to throw another human under the metaphorical bus to get what you want. A single other human.
To say yes to the first choice is temptation. Often, the very first time we make this choice, it is a small act that seems inconsequential. But like the addict, once you say yes to the small choice on this path, the second YES is easier. And then easier. Until lying, cheating and corruption are the norm and not the exception.
Of course, this is easier in an ecology that says lying, cheating, and corruption are acceptable behaviours. Where leaders and elected representatives are incentivised, through the design of our systems…unlimited funding in elections, lack of oversight or erosion of the oversight/checks and balances, the shareholder as the only one we answer to, and fudged metrics that tell a compelling but completely untrue story…to win, at all costs, even the cost of integrity.
Integrity means to hold its shape. When the shape is disintegrating, integrity cannot be present. Our systems and moral structures are disintegrating.
We need to consider our part in this global theatre. How we stood by and watched as the first lie was accepted. Did we rage against it? If not, we are complicit.
I am complicit. I did not speak up, speak out. Become an active citizen. Not in the beginning.
What can we do? What can I do?
Sitting in this question, my answer has been arriving as a cumulative outcome of my entire life and body of work…
…rather than try and re-arrange the deck chairs on what I consider our global version of the Titanic…in the hands of our current political, economic, financial, governance, currency, enterprise design, human co-ordination systems …the Earth and her all of her creatures…including you, me and the 1%, are all headed off a cliff…not just climate, but poverty, inequality, natural systems collapse, extinction, human connection, meaning…
We might instead turn 90 degrees…and look to the future we want to create. We might consider comprehensively new models, new maps…we might be open to new mindsets towards a world that works for Earth and all her creatures.
We might hold our choice for integrity, the integrity of our own expression, the integrity of our art, our gift, our creativity and entrepreneurship, and the enterprises we build, as the foundation.
We might take the time to get the foundation right before we rush to produce the thing. For if we do not, no matter how passionate we are, the thing we are creating might easily become contaminated and corrupted by the very models we are seeking to redesign. The temptation, at that point, will be too great…or…we might not even be aware we have been swept up into its powerful and all-consuming field.
To make the hardest choice is a declaration of the future we want. It says…
Humans can create a world that works for all, without ecological offence or the disadvantage of anyone.
Me thinks this is the path of transformative innovation. This is possible. Towards this I have dedicated the rest of my life.
Here is my declaration, my pledge.
“We are the Map Makers and Way Finders – at the frontiers of new models of enterprise design, human coordination, capital, care and love for our planet and its future, all Earths creatures. When we commit to working synergistically our potential is exponential. Acting in this way, honouring the laws inherent in nature, and applying them to human systems, there is no problem towards an eternally regenerative Universe that cannot be solved”
I invite you to join me as we, the people, steward Spaceship Earth to a vibrant future for all.
PS. The paragraph above is from the Covenant for Syntropic Enterprise creators. If you want the full pledge, hit reply and I will send it to you.
PPS. I teach how to do this in the Syntropic Enterprise Masterclass.
February 19th 2020
Photo taken February 19th, 2020
