We are stewards.
We are stewards of Earth, this planet, this place we came to, charged with a task some of us don’t even know yet and others of us might be slightly reluctant about. Right now, we are charged with the task of changing this place – the people on it, the way they interact, with each other, as society, as governments, as humans relating and connected to animals and all of nature.
We are charged with creating a new future, sparking the elements inside of people so they can connect to inspired ideas – ideas that want to help us. Sparking motivation, drive, dedication, and the opening to receive the help from beyond that will keep us from falling apart.
We are charged with being more than we were, dropping the old and seeing how we can be that will create more – a better and sustainable world. We are charged with losing our ways that didn’t serve, with knowing what doesn’t work and finding something new, inspiring younger generations, or just being the younger generation and not following in the footsteps of what came before that largely didn’t work.
We are charged to no longer be stubborn or reluctant, entitled or selfish. And to no longer let that all snowball in the world as a culture set to destroy it. We are charged to take care of what is both ours and not ours – what is collectively ours.
We are stewards. We stew towards something new, putting things in the pot that will create a new flavor that we can taste, that is palpable, leaving us inspired and wanting for more of what was so good. Something we likely never have truly tasted, even if we had something similar. Something all together different, a new revelation.
We stew towards a great revolution of consciousness. But like cooking, it takes time, constantly stirring, tasting, inspired to add ingredients that round out the flavor to the perfect, fulfilling blend. And like a stew, we will be something different than all the individual components that made it up. Better together. Delectable. Satisfying.
As stewards, we must not be reluctant or distracted, depressed or dismayed for too long, though those things will come, as they do, with the effort of change. We must constantly find the inspiration to bring us a life more fulfilling than we have, even if at the moment we do not even understand how we will be fulfilled in the future. We must prepare for the times we will need resilience and cultivate the practice of it, just as one would tend the most useful garden.
Stewards need to constantly stay on track – be inspired, be resilient and find fulfillment in the job. We need each other. What we are doing is reimagining the world without necessarily knowing all the ways in which it will change. Reimagining with inspiration. Reimagining with fulfillment. Reimagining with resilience, as the old will be slow and often belligerent to change, or the house of cards we have built might just come down. We are creators at the frontier of something new.
But above all what will keep us sane – and what we must teach in order for the change – is receiving. What do I mean by this? Receiving is what humans stink at. We have become so unable to receive from everything around us – the good, the inspiring, the complement, the help we need and is often waiting to be had. We know only trauma and reaction and yet we seek love and fulfillment. We mostly deflect the energy that would not only inform and inspire us and make us feel better, but would fuel us forward. Why? Because we have barriers and blocks we have no idea exist, and we have even made cultures out of this.
In a time of change, receiving IS the fuel forward. It IS the path of ease. It IS the way to know. And knowing helps us choose. Inventions and art and literature and music and ideas were all received.
This world will be full of choices – some new, some new and scary, some we have known we will make at some point but put off, even if we are unaware of this knowing. We have somehow wrapped ourselves in a world that has allowed us to lie to ourselves often. We have lied to ourselves, believing in ideals that would never be sustainable. We lied to ourselves to fit-in to a person or group or belief or idea and belong, cornering ourselves. We have adhered to supposed great ways of being that were probably based on belief systems we don’t really even know we have. And we probably stubbornly believed being like this was right, was THE way … when all along we were not seeing the future of these choices and living our own lie.
In the digital world, we built what now looks like a house of cards – the instant gratification culture. We put this in our brains, wired ourselves to no longer be able to feel for ourselves but be pulled instead. And we pulled ourselves right into a global culture of want and need and the desire and ability to carry through on that, such that when it was stripped away, we suffered.
We bought the great idea of perfection or seeking perfection. Perfecting everything: living as perfect, expecting perfection or just ‘more,’ expecting companies and people and institutions to BE perfect. We created something that wasn’t sustainable and put pressure on us, drove us, pushed us. It was an ideal that took its toll in stress and long hours, and the expectation that – not only were those ok – but those were the way to not just success, but success as fulfillment. We became inhuman.
Now in pandemic, with everything stripped away, we are seeing our lies. We FEEL them in our minds and bodies. Sometimes it does not feel good. We are tired or weary, bored or distrustful. Sick, sad, frustrated. We know there is no going back. Back no longer exists.
Maybe we still stubbornly turn our head, but the truth pokes at us to see the lies. Particularly the ones we lived by all by ourselves; the dreams we told ourselves we wanted but really didn’t, then pursued anyhow and got here to a place we really didn’t want to be at. We climbed mountains that many of us would never choose of our own accord, but somewhere we agreed … we decided … collectively as a culture that this was normal, important, ok. So climbing these mountains became badges or trophies of success that we let society – culture – decide was important.
We lived as the actions that created the societies we live in, as their engine. And yet, during pandemic and likely before, we sensed the dissatisfaction with the way of life we collectively and individually created. The overload, the lack of true respect of each other as human beings not cogs in the economic wheel, the expectations that fueled stress and pressure, the asshole and righteousness and entitlement created within us or others, the rat race. And for those who mourn all the things they used to have that now they cannot – the trips, the hoards of things, the constant dining out, the bar nights, the instant gratification of delivery of what we might have – while we might mourn the missing of connection to people, we secretly or openly might not miss the need for these things that did not brings always as much joy as a need for more, because we were somewhere empty.
So now, here we are, in the wrong place, trying to change. Trying to recover what matters, because we followed instead of listened, and forgot that we are stewards. Stewards, that role in which we might actually find fulfillment.
According to Miriam-Webster’s Dictionary, a steward is “one who actively directs affairs.” Stewardship means the “conducting, supervising, or managing of something – especially: the careful and responsible management of something entrusted in one’s care.” And to entrust means “to commit to another with confidence” – implying something that is not intrinsically ours. Confidence, as defined by Oxford Languages, is “the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.”
We are here as stewards. We are here, in this time, to create the change that’s necessary for a sustainable, livable, and fulfilling future by helping people see how and what to change, because we messed this place up. We are even having a hard time because the way we did society broke it. And there is more to come, unless we stop being stubborn and stuck and reluctant and accept this new role. Accepting is is not a process, it’s a choice that can be made in an instant, after which the personal change will be obvious.
Being a steward requires action and connection, learning and teaching, communication and demonstration, because we have been entrusted for the care of what is both not and actually is intrinsically ours.
If ever we were dormant, now we are responsible. We are the stewards.
