World Vision Dialogue - Building a new collective dream

Envision PEACE

In memoriam of those who have given their lives for PEACE.

Vision with action changes the world.
I can see it even as we commemorate the lives lost in violence.
I see a new time---a time of PEACE, do you?

"I am an irrespressible optimist. My optimism rests on my belief in the infinite possibilities of the individual to develop nonviolence. The mosre you develop it in your own being, the more infectious it becomes till it overwhelms your surroundings and by and by might oversweep the world."

---Gandhi

Envision yourself being the change you want to see in the world.

What do you see? Leave a comment to inspire others.
What are you doing to show it? Share it.

Debbe Kennedy

Dream Workshop Exercise 1: Getting a task done.

A “simple” exercise in Dreaming

We hinted at this forum also providing a dream workshop. Allow me to use this exercise to introduce the workshop.

Each day, we have scores of tasks—more or less—to accomplish. Most times, we do fine. Other times, we run into “a task too far…” This one causes us anxiety, cold sweats and sleepless nights. The technique introduced in this exercise will take care of this type and any other type of task. You may want to practice with less troublesome tasks at first, but be brave: use it with your next or even current “difficult” task.

The best thing about a task is that while you may not know how or where to begin, or how to accomplish it, there is a clear endpoint or object, and you / the judges all agree on what it is. In other words, everyone knows when you accomplish the task.

Your dream exercise:  “See” the task done.

Don’t be concerned, regarding the task itself, about how—how to begin, how to proceed, etc—in your dream. Your dream simply “sees” the task done.

About “see” and “seeing”… What constitutes “to see” or “seeing”? You will be surprised. You can see something without “laying your eyes on it.” Seeing in dreaming means recognition, which comes with clarity. For example, you can recognize someone by the smell of his or her favorite perfume (even when worn by an entirely different person). And, it comes with clarity. Notice that it did not require “focus” or “concentration” to effect the recognition and clarity. You can “see” someone just by recognizing the way they walk—or work; or the way they cough or laugh. (By the way, the brain needs just a paltry few features to recognize a face and the whole person. The brain can recognize and pick out a person from just your looking down at pairs of different feet, without ever seeing anything above the ankles.)

You know the feeling you get when you have successfully completed a task? For our purpose, that is equivalent to “seeing” the task done. In this case, to do your dream exercise, re-live / recall this feeling while associating it with the task.

Or, is it the celebration, small or big, for a task accomplished? Place yourself in that mood and mode, and associate it with the task. That, is “seeing” enough: that constitutes seeing the task done for the purposes of this dream exercise.

So you see, (pardon the pun), you can get creative and use whatever works for you to simulate (or stimulate) “seeing” the task done in your dream..

If you need to re-enact or keep re-enacting the “seeing” until the task is accomplished, that’s fine, too. If you need to combine different ways of “seeing” as explained above, that’s fine, too.

I said not to worry about “how…” because once you see the task done in your dream, whatever you need to do and whatever you need to get it done, will be provided for you. It may even be that someone else will end up getting it done for you (don’t you wish?), but the task gets done anyway.

Now, get to your exercise! And, I appeal to you to be generous and share your experiences so that we may all learn from you.

I dream, therefore, I am…

Oguchi

Nations with VISION are powerfully enabled

As we watch so many things spiral out of control in our world, it invites a question that you and I must answer. How can we be catalysts for change? History suggests that it begins with having a powerful vision of our future---building a new collective dream for a better world and putting that dream into action.

Joel Barker, famed futurist, author and filmmaker, highlights this compelling call in his film, The Power of Vision. One of the profiles is about the work of Dutch scholar Fred Polak, author of The Image of the Future (1961). Polak studied the accounts of many nations, both ancient and modern, to see how positively they wrote about their futures and how well they lived up to their own expectations. Joel Barker brings Polak's findings to life on location in Athens at the Parthenon:

"The parthenon was first a vision in the mind of the architect. So too, did the Greeks envision the future of their culture. How did this happen? Well, the Greeks began with dreams. ...Those dreams were changed into something much more powerful---VISION. Vision is a result of dreams in action! What Polak found in his research was that significant vision preceded significant success.

In example after example he saw the same pattern emerge. First a compelling image of the future was offered by leaders. Then that image was shared with their community and they agreed to support it. Then together, acting in concert they made the vision a reality."

Polak found that "the many of the nations as they began their climb to greatness did not have the right resources, the critical population base, or an obvious strategic advantage. In fact, they succeeded against all odds. What they did have was a profound vision of their own future and that is the key ingredient, not the only one, but the first and most important.

Nations with vision are powerfully enabled.
Nations without vision are at risk."

Today many of our nations in world lack leaders with vision. People are discouraged, disinterested and indifferent, many are suffering. We are at risk. The challenge before us is great. This is certainly demonstrated day-to-day in what continues to be manifested in the United States by having a self-proclaimed "war president." We have manufactured wars, killing and greed on levels most of us have never recognized until recently. A profile of a successful entreprenuer highlighted on CNN today symbolized the extent of having a vision of war. The CEO proudly boasted of their company's success in moving from high tech to armor as core business for financial success. "I see armored vehicles as an emerging market." he said.

Because of these grave realities, it places the responsibility on you and me --- on the people of world to join together, virtually hand-in-hand, to build a new dream and to put our commitment and action behind it.

Join with us. Make your first climb on the walk to greatness. See the view clearly of today and then let yourself imagine a new world --- a more loving, productive, inclusive, generous world for all people. See the view from your vantage point and share it with us. Tell what to do as you see it. It might only be a small glimpse that comes to you of one tiny piece of the whole vision, but don't think it insigificant. Tell us. Help all of us see what you see. Post your vision to put your fingerprint on building a new future for our world.

Debbe Kennedy
Founder, Global Dialogue Center

Other suggestions...

• Read visionary writings and comments from others.
• Visit the WHAT YOU CAN DO dialogue for practical ideas.
• See related links on the left menu for more ideas and inspirations.
• Learn more about Fred Polak's The Image of the Future
• Learn more about The Power of Vision