Mission 6: Venturing into Life's Diversity

In the emerging New Story, we are seeing how life can become an ally rather than an adversary, whereas the Old Story once saw life as an enemy to control and overcome. In the New Story, Life is on our side - because we know the life within and around us wishes to survive and thrive. In our previous mission, we began to explore how nature forms complex, win-win relationships between many forms of life that lead to unexpected benefits. Nature can offer us unbelievable insights into how we might want to design systems within our New Story to create abundance, stability, and even peace.   Agents, what other lessons does nature have to reveal to us? Let’s take a look… In healthy ecosystems, countless lifeforms interact and perform important jobs that benefit the whole, from pollinating flowers to creating healthy soil to providing shade for others. As it turns out, the healthier an ecosystem is, the more diverse forms of life live there to take care of these many important jobs. If one species isn’t able to perform its job - say, a pollinating bee - then there are other pollinators (such as butterflies!) that can pick up the slack and ensure the ecosystem continues to thrive. The human world - which is part of this more-than-human world - works in the same way. Not only would it be very boring if everybody were to be just like us, we actually become stronger and more resilient because of our diversity of differences. The collective reservoir of our gifts, skills, experiences, ethnicities and cultures is actually what in part makes our species so unique. We have so much to learn from each other!   Our mission today, Agents, is to strengthen the ecosystem of the human family by honoring our extraordinary diversity.   Differences are beautiful and rich, and human life is full of them! How lucky are we?!   Yet, honoring other people’s differences can be challenging. Often, we humans create stories about a particular group of people that is based off of fear and misunderstanding. Instead of really seeing them, we see the story we made up about them, and often times that story was given to us from someone else.   Instead of fear, let us use a more exciting tool to gain some insight: curiosity! Today, identify a person or a group of people you have previously thought to be different than you in some way. Let’s ask... ”What is it like to be you? If I was born in your life, and I have seen what you have seen, who would I be? Would I be you?” I did not perform this mission yet. We will return to our observations in tomorrow’s mission! Remember to report and share your experiences on the Compassion Report Map! Good luck, Agents!     The Champion Spotlight illuminates outstanding organizations and individuals around the world whose work is contributing to a more peaceful, just, and compassionate planet. These entities are known as Champions of Compassion. We are excited for Day 7 of the Unity Games Relay to highlight Films for the Planet!   Read about the wonder-filled offerings of Films for the Planet here!