MOVING TOWARD SHARED RESPONSIBILITY

When major revelations about global corruption first came to light, it was natural for people to lay the entire blame firmly at the door of the key perpetrators. Outrage, condemnation, and calls for swift justice were voiced loud and strong. Many felt like innocent bystanders who played absolutely no part in the darker aspects of society being revealed. That view generally persists today, though it seems to have tempered slightly as the initial shock and intense emotional reactions have quieted down.

Perhaps we are now at a point where we can gently look at how we might have contributed to this dynamic. The reality is that we frequently gave our power away in almost every area of life, which certainly made things much easier for those in authority.

Most of us can recall times when we noticed wrongdoing in our environment but chose not to speak up. Millions of taxpayer’s money is routinely wasted on failed projects. In my own area, our local council has wasted a fortune. A 125 million dollar desalination plant began to rust before ever producing water, and it now sits largely idle while costing 15 million dollars a year just to maintain. They approved an 87 million dollar IT system that failed; scrapped a two million dollar public art installation after widespread complaints because no community survey was done beforehand, and poured 13.9 million dollars into a failed beach nourishing project.

If this pattern is duplicated in towns and cities worldwide, our silence and lack of protest may have inadvertently allowed this negative energy to persist. Usually, we just complained to a neighbor or a partner and moved on, because we always had practical reasons for not getting involved.

We rarely connect a lack of personal responsibility to the broader, darker energies of the world. Yet, any way of living that tolerates small lies and deceit ultimately reinforces the very kind of society we want to avoid. For instance, we often assume that taking small items or supplies home from work has absolutely no bearing on the collective energy of our culture, but everything is connected.

Truth is the ultimate catalyst for resolution. As long as we insist that we are entirely blameless and played no part in how the world got to this point, we actually block our own path forward. It is sitting in a fixed view that is not entirely true. We did not commit the major offenses, of course, but everything operates as energy. Having the courage to admit there were times we could have spoken up allows us to step onto the path of true alignment and take genuine responsibility for our lives. It also helps us start to shift from the idea of being victims and look at the actual power we have as our part in creation.

Love,

Sandy Stevenson

19.6.26