[Marco Lam and Huy Lam are offering an introduction to Liberation Economics on May 4 (Tues.), 6:00 - 8:00 p.m., Boulder Meadows Community Room, 4500 19th Street (19th & Violet), Boulder. Click here for details.]

With the economic instability, political upheavals, a looming environmental and energy crisis, advances in technology and genetic engineering, one thing is clear: We are living in a time of great change and uncertainty. These systemic changes can have many implications on our personal lives in ways that we can’t possibly predict.

Simultaneously, many of us have awakened to a broader awareness and sense a deeper meaning for our lives. From this place, we are inspired to pursue our greater potential and positively impact the world. So we may vacillate between feeling hope and optimism for new possibilities, and a pervading sense of anxiety that the security we counted on is ephemeral. Many of us experience this directly around the challenges we face with finding work that is aligned with our emerging selves and in receiving the financial means we desire.

We are no longer willing to simply commit our lives to working at a job we don’t find meaningful. Making the money and postponing our fulfillment till somewhere down the road is no longer satisfying. We want more, and we realize that life is too short to be wasting our time. It is true that we may take a job that is less than ideal to make ends meet temporarily, but we intuit that it is not sustainable for us in the longer term. It’s too big of a compromise of who we are and what we know we are capable of.

This path towards creating a career that is both an expression of our purpose and one that provides the financial means for a nourishing lifestyle, can often feel like a lonely journey with no clear destination in sight. Whether you have a well paying job and want more fulfillment, or you are clear on your purpose but are unable to support yourself through its expression, it often feels like a challenge that we are unable to overcome. We have come to a place that we know we are missing a big opportunity that is right in front of us, but it feels just a little too far out to grasp.

An opportunity for what? An opportunity to discover and co-realize a way in which we can make a living through living our purpose. You are not alone in the challenges that you are facing. Nor are you alone in the hope that you feel, although at times it may seem like a distant light on the horizon. Together we can bring about a new way of approaching work in our world. A way in which our gifts and talents we each possess are the source of value from which we create abundance for ourselves and our community. A way in which our work is an expression of our highest values. A way of working together that collectively creates that which we most long for. A way that we can have both the means and the meaning. The way of Liberation Economics.

Liberation is about freedom that is not dependent upon external circumstances. Instead of feeling limited or confined by financial concerns, we can use economics as a tool to support us in living our purpose and creating greater freedom in our lives. What we need is a new vision of work that is driven by intrinsic motivation, acts as a reflection of our practice, and creates greater abundance in our lives as we consciously participate in the evolution of our society and the preservation of our planet. But we can’t afford to wait for someone else to create this vision. We are the change we’ve been waiting for. If we want to make the kind of change that truly makes a difference, we need to step into this undertaking as part of our evolutionary obligation living in this time.

The time is right, as the “rules of the game” are changing. Anyone can see that many of the systems by which we have been operating (political, economic, environmental, health, education, religious, etc.) need to change. Why? The ‘old rules’ are obsolete because they are inadequate to address the complexity of our current challenges. Nor are they sufficient for the realization of our new possibilities. What are some of these old rules in relation to work?

• We stay in one profession at a time, and continue trying to advance in that field throughout our lives.
• The work we do is separate from our path of personal growth & development – we work so that we can support our lives. (Hence we need ‘work/life’ balance.)
• The top priority in our lives is to work so that we can make money. And the money that we earn is mostly for what we do and not for who we fully are or what we’re capable of creating.
• Our work is separate from & independent of our environment and community.
• If we choose to do meaningful work, we have to sacrifice financial security
• We need to compete for limited resources in the marketplace, and there’s only so much to go around.

It’s good that the rules need changing. It’s a sign of progress, and also the source of our opportunity. We’ve come to the point where our insights, knowledge and awareness are far beyond how we are individually and collectively showing up day to day. Most of us have had experiences which have revealed to us that we can live our lives with a greater purpose. We have sensed that it is possible to come into a deeper and more harmonious relationship with ourselves, each other, and the whole of existence. We know at some level that it’s possible for us to connect with this greater sense of meaning to move beyond our sense of a separate self, and work for the benefit of each other.

We need to practice embodying these higher principles in ourselves, in our culture and our systems. Because this is what it takes for us to truly be happy and free. As an example: Most of us know that we are not totally independent and can’t live free from relying on and affecting others and our environment. We have the awareness that we are living interconnected lives – with our family, communities, country, & planet. “That which unites us is so much greater than that which divides us.” Yet how can we act & work as if this is really the case? This is also related to our understanding that our current way of living isn’t sustainable for the planet. But there’s a gap between what we know and the choices we make moment to moment. It’s time for us to close this gap. It’s ultimately what we want, and what we are here to do. But how?

We can’t do it by thinking how we’ve always thought and doing what we’ve already been doing. We need something different. And since so much or our time and energy is spent generating our livelihood, the most powerful way that each of us can begin to cause the change we want to see in the world is by creating a new approach to our livelihood that honors what we value and also transcends the current limitations we are feeling. We need to facilitate the emergence of a practice community that collaborates, supports, and even relies on each other to co-create opportunities for all members of the community to make a living through living our purpose.

For this to happen, each of us needs to start by intimately knowing what our purpose is. So how do we do that? Traditionally, we tend to think that each of us has a unique purpose. And that our fulfillment is dependent upon us feeling like we are on the path towards realizing this unique purpose in some way. The surprising insight of Liberation Economics is that we all have a common purpose. This shared purpose is to fulfill our potential, and it’s that potential which is unique to each of us.

An even more powerful realization is that our potential already exists within us right now. It emerges from within as our unique gifts, which include our insights, virtues, talents, skills, ideas, and abilities. Take a moment to let the implications of this distinction really sink in. Our fulfillment no longer depends upon external circumstances. It arises through the ongoing realization of our potential in every aspect of our lives. So that daily life itself becomes the context for our fulfillment.

Once we become clear that our purpose is to fulfill the potential that exists within us, we need to engage a life of practice. Practice is the act of purposefully embodying our potential.

While having an expanded awareness of the potential within us can elicit a sense of new possibility that is inspiring, it is just the first step. For example, we may see the opportunity for generating a livelihood from work that is more fulfilling than what we are currently doing. The next step is to consciously choose this possibility as a potential that we want to fulfill. This is the act of becoming purposeful. Out of this comes an intention for that new livelihood opportunity to emerge.

As we hold this intention, we begin to see things that we have taken for granted as new opportunities. Perhaps we see the possibility to engage our colleagues in a way that’s not just about what we do together at work, but also expresses who we are. In some instances we may act accordingly, but we will also become acutely aware of times when our actions are not aligned with our intentions. And instead of relating to what we notice as problems to solve or insurmountable obstacles, we can now see these moments as opportunities to actualize our potential. This way of practicing is what creates true liberation in our lives.

A ripple effect occurs when we purposefully embodying our potential. This act attracts those that can appreciate the value that we create through our livelihood and it creates an inspiration for them to do the same. When a group of people start engaging with their potential in this way, a community of partners emerges. We honor this group of individuals as a Catalyst Community. This community accelerates the development of each of our individual potentials by collaborating, supporting and relying on each other to co-realize the opportunities for each of us to make a living through living our purpose.

This emergent community needs support and design for it to flourish and grow. We have a strong individuating response to look after our individual interests but through practices we can touch in to the foundational connection that we all share. Communities that engage in practice together have the ability to manifest an emerging potential that can not be realized individually. The obstacles are great in tapping into this emerging potential, but it is the greatest challenge of our time to realize this opportunity to fulfill this potential.

When we realize that the coordination of our partners needs a larger framework for it to flourish and meet the needs of each of our partners, something more complex emerges. We are ready to embrace structure in a way that is no longer inhibiting or oppressing, but actually serves to liberate our greatest potential. The plan that emerges both embraces structure and flexibility, hierarchy and individual needs. With our partners we collaborate on a structure that supports the unfolding of our potential and allows for both a greater freedom and a high level of accountability. This plan denotes what is needed by each of the partners and creates livelihood by fulfilling the actual real needs of our community.

We are grateful for this opportunity to be transparent about our intentions and to invite you to collaborate with us in Liberation Economics.

Sincerely,

Marco Lam and Huy Lam