A truth ignored always leads to a crisis.
The interesting thing about people becoming dissatisfied with their lives is that we don’t arrive at it overnight; it’s often a very gradual process but within it, there is one universal ingredient that will always be present.
We ignore our true selves, the voice of our hearts, one little inconsequential moment at a time, but we soon learn that there are no inconsequential moments.
They add up like drops of water slowly filling a barrel.
A truth ignored will always eventually lead to a crisis, which means, within every crisis is a hidden truth that has been suppressed.
“If I dare to hear you
I will feel you like the sun
And grow in your direction.”
― Mark Nepo
A seed will always sprout under the right conditions.
When reflecting on the lives of great leaders and visionaries, we remember them by what they accomplished, but underneath that, we should remember the seminal idea – the seed they planted, which they lived and dies for, and drove them to grow that idea into what we remember them for.
Seminal means in essence having a strong influence on ideas, works, events that come later. It is a seed so compelling that it has a profound influence on others and can literally change the playing field and the game that’s played.
The seminal idea has to be planted in fertile soil first before it can grow and bare fruit. It will always take both a leader to posses the seed and a community of believers to make it flourish. And paradoxically, seminal ideas often pollinate out in the world in their own hidden ways.
Martin Luther King’s seminal idea was expressed in his historic speech delivered August 28th, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. and all those people who showed did it without Facebook or Twitter, cell phones or iPads. They showed up for this:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. “
Muhammad Yunus
Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshisocial entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prizefor his efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below. What was his seminal idea?
That you could create a business with a social objective of helping get people out of poverty, so that one day we can live in a world where people would have visit a museum to see what poverty used to look like.
Are we there yet? No. Seems like we have a long way to go, but things are better for a lot of people in our world because of the seed he planted. He opened our eyes to something simple. A helping hand and a few dollars is all many people need to let them rise above poverty. It didn’t require a complicated solution or a 12-month study from a think tank in Washington D.C.
Ernst Friedrich Fritz
Ernst Friedrich Fritz Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker
His seminal idea was that he believed in studying economics as if people matteredand his book “Small is Beautiful” is still considered to be on of the most influential books of the 20thcentury.
Siddhartha
One short novel that created a huge shift for me was Herman Hesse’s Masterpiece Siddhartha.
In the story Siddhartha begins as a prince who had everything, becomes a renunciant who had nothing, and then a successful businessman and sensualist. He had done it all and still not found what he was looking for.
Any yet we could say he was a “Buddha in waiting” all along. He carried within him the seed of that possibility. And when a seminal idea is finally planted in his mind by his friend and teacher, the humble ferryman, and he has the opportunity to put it in to practice, he awakens and becomes a Buddha. What was the ferryman’s seminal idea?
To listen better. To learn how to listen to life?
“Silent Spring” was written in 1962. Think about how many people were talking about the environment then? Not many. And yet she had a seminal idea that called for a change in the way humankind viewed the natural world. And the world is finally catching up to this visionary environmentalist and her ideas about how our lives are inexorably intertwined with the natural world.
Everything begins with a seed. A seed is hidden potential, the promise of what will be if the right circumstances are created. Hidden potential exists in every seed, whether an oak tree or an idea.
All the oak seed requires are the right circumstances and ingredients ~ soil, water and light along with time and patience for it to become what it is waiting to become.
Personal growth is about finding the right ingredients and creating the circumstances so your hidden potential and the promise of what you can be... comes to pass.
It really is that simple.
Don't blame the seed if you won't plant the dream because of fear or procrastination.
Don't blame the soil if you won't water your dreams with actions.
Don't blame circumstances if you won't let the light nourish your dreams with positive energy and hope.
Ask yourself what is really important to you and then have the courage to plant your life in the soil of that idea, and let your living be that seed reaching it’s potential.
It's time!
It’s time to plant a dream or an idea or a revolution and live your life so it grows. You deserve it and you owe it to yourself and our world.
I offer a thoughtful effective coaching & mindfulness program incorporating personal & spiritual growth. Ancient wisdom meets contemporary coaching.