The more beautiful world. The already beautiful world. The abundantly beautiful community of people and trees and gardens and fresh air that I wake up to every day – oh, what a beautiful way to wake.
Since reading Eisenstein’s book, I’ve struggled with this more concept. In one hand, palm face up, filled with emptiness, I get it. I can think of numerous ways in which the world could be more beautiful, on various levels. Many of these seeming deficiencies are like potholes that I accidentally ride over on my bike, or cracks in the sidewalk that I trip on.
Then I think to myself: I wish we didn’t have paved streets and sidewalks of oily grey, and that I could instead walk on a dirt trail to school, showing up to class with muddy feet and a grin on my face from the peaceful walk through the trees where the morning birdsong vibrated the strings of my heart and the leaves under my feet grounded my soul to the earth.
That, I believe, would make for quite a beautiful world. Can you imagine the chain reaction of positivity that could occur if we didn’t have paved streets and everyone walked or biked to work, school, and wherever via a road marked not by street signs but instead by the trees’ familiar faces?… Maybe just try to imagine it what might happen.
In the other hand, there is abundance. We are blessed to live in the community that we do. Where I grew up is not like where I live now. I did not have a community; I did not know how to create a community for myself. There wasn’t really even a sense of “family” in my home.
Since being here, people have come into my life who have become family to me. Just the thought of these incredible beings fills my heart with such warmth that I am overcome with tears of gratitude. They are the beautiful world my heart knows is possible – because its right in front of me and all around me and is so abundant it permeates my skin; these people somehow chiseled away the wall around my heart, brick by brick, ever so gently, until it could beat again. They are my constant inspiration, my constant support, my constant teachers, my belief in a more beautiful world.
To live out the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible, I try to begin with an honest look inside myself: how are my thoughts, actions, words, interactions, and every way in which I be in the world either working toward or against a more beautiful world? The pattern my soul seems to like working through life is a process like this: two steps forward, one step back, and often the more difficult, rugged path up the mountain. Some days are harder than others – all the more reason to hold myself in compassion with the rest of the world and wake up tomorrow to try again.
So, step 1: I work on being the best me that I can be, starting from the inside and working my way out.
Step 2: everything else.
The driving force behind everything I do is the idea that I’d like to leave the world a little better than I found it. To me, that is all I can do to create The More Beautiful World My Heart Knows Is Possible. If that means I help Ellie in her garden on the weekend, then I know in my heart I made a difference. If that means that during the week I help engage students in sustainability efforts so that they can learn how to treat the earth with respect (and everything that comes along with that…), then I am more than happy to do so. These are among the things I do in my day-to-day in an effort to live out the more beautiful world my heart knows is possible.
And, my heart also pulls me in a specific direction so fiercely. It has been pulling me there my whole life, and I noticed this tug when I was about 16 – and the tug has only gotten stronger and more intense since. Another way of saying this: what I know in my heart I am meant to do with my life continues to become more and more clear, more and more specific, more and more attainable – and every day is a step on this constantly evolving path. For some reason it has never really been unclear, or at least there’s been enough clarity that I kept moving forward in faith and assurance…
One thing on this path has always been crystal clear: what my soul is here to do has everything to do with making the world a better place. The World is a big place. I have no clue as to whether whatever difference I make will extend beyond the grass in the front yard. Yet even if that’s as far as it goes, that is okay. Maybe someday that grass will be a part of someone’s dirt path to school, and they’ll see the flower I planted, and they’ll smile. That is one small step toward a More Beautiful World.
The More Beautiful World Project 