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“Every human being’s deepest, most natural expression is the desire to make a difference in life, of wanting to matter. We can choose to make the success of all humanity our personal business. We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family, to make our love for each other and for the world what our lives are really about.” ~Werner Erhard
- Decide on a project for which you are willing to take complete responsibility.
- Complete the project successfully.
- Relate this achievement to others as an inspiration for them.
- Your willingness to express yourself may be just the trigger needed by someone else to do something for themselves.
- From now on, don’t wait for something to happen to you. Actually take responsibility for making something happen. Keep at it until you make it a successful experience for everyone.
- You can make the difference.
~Werner Erhard
It takes enormous courage to approach living from a you and me context. It is audacious to create your life making a difference in a world that says that you don’t. It takes a lot of heart – openness to your own magnanimity, compassion for yourself, for your own pettiness when it shows itself. Even in the face of failure, Werner noted, “you need to be willing to accept yourself as an evolving master in the issue of making the world work for everyone, and to hold the failures, doubts, fears, and uncertainties within the context that you are evolving in mastery.”
Sometime around now – it may have happened five years ago or fifty years ago – but sometime around now the rules for living successfully on ths planet shifted. We can no longer hope to live meaningful, purposeful lives using the rules of a you or me world. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to those who will look that in order to live successfully on this planet, we must discover and live by the rules of you and me.”
We are not speaking of altruism. In a you and me world, when you are successful, whole, validated, and fulfilled, I win. What is the meaning of concepts such as selfishness and altruism when you experience the Self as all things – as the space in which all things occur?”
In the past, we have maintained a you or me world by sharing our surplus rather than by sharing the ability to produce surplus. That kind of altruism, those “gestures of goodwill” have only served to strengthen the status quo and perpetuate a world of “haves” and “have-nots.” In a you and me world, true generosity means empowering people to produce for themselves.
Werner Erhard – A Shot Heard Round The World
Context is the freedom to be. Context is space. It has no form, no place in time; it allows form and time. In the absence of a consciously-created context, our lives are controlled by content – the forces and circumstances of the condition in which we live. Once you create a context, that context then generates a process in which the content – the forces and circumstances – reorder and align themselves with the context. For example, if you choose to shift the context of your life from ‘I don’t matter’ to ‘I make a difference,’ the circumstances in your life, while they may not have changed, take on an entirely new meaning. This new meaning, then, begins to reflect that you do make a difference.”
“What does it mean to make a difference in the world? Most people think it means to leave behind a city with your name on it or some great organization.
What makes a difference is to make a difference in people’s lives. We don’t allow ourselves to think that the world could work for all of us. That’s a radical kind of thinking.
It’s been my experience that you can make a difference and in fact that you do make a difference. And we are always choosing.”
“Decide on a project for which you are willing to take complete responsibility. Complete the project successfully. Relate this achievement to others as an inspiration for them. Your willingness to express yourself may be just the trigger needed by someone else to do something for themselves. From now on, don’t wait for something to happen to you. Actually take responsibility for making something happen. Keep at it until you make it a successful experience for everyone. You can make the difference.” – Werner Erhard
“What we create together is a relationship in which we work on making a difference in people’s lives. I welcome the unprecedented opportunity for us to work globally on that which concerns us all as human beings.”
“We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family. We can choose to make our love for the world what our lives are really about. Each of us has the opportunity, the privilege, to make a difference in creating a world that works for all of us. It will require courage, audacity and heart. It is much more radical than a revolution – it is the beginning of a transformation in the quality of life on our planet. What we create together is a relationship in which our work can show up as making a difference in people’s lives. I welcome the unprecedented opportunity for us to work globally on that which concerns us all as human beings.
If not you, who?
If not now, when?
If not here, where?”
Werner Erhard
Werner Erhard’s est Training inspired its participants to go out and make a difference with their lives, contribute to humanity, and give back to their communities. To fulfill the humanitarian motivations of these est graduates a number of not for profit organizations were founded by Werner Erhard along with other original est staffers, notably Gonneke Spits, and the literally hundreds of thousands of individuals who had participated in The est Training. est graduates knew the power of “the little individual” and used their lives to improve their communities through the Community Workshop; and give Youths At Risk a new opportunity in their lives, and fostered and funded development work in Africa through The Breakthrough Foundation; and committed themselves to work to end hunger in the world through The Hunger Project and its many offshoots. These organizations, along with the Werner Erhard Foundation which played a hand in establishing all of these charities, provided forums for the individual to make a difference worldwide. For more information about the Werner Erhard Foundation visit http://wernererhardfoundation.org.
Werner Erhard Quotes 