I had a dream Friday morning about being in the future. In this future, humanity had gotten its act together and had arrived at a place of peace, harmony, and wisdom, such that we were no longer trying to coerce each other or force each other into thinking or believing or being certain ways. We also had interstellar travel, and I had been sent to another planet as an envoy to present our offer of friendship and help.

This other planet had (has? will have?) some interesting different ways of being, including a lack of belief in physical privacy; for example, although they recognized the sanitary reasons for keeping toilets separate from eating and living areas, bathrooms were not private, and anybody might pass through one on their way to somewhere else without anyone caring who might be using it at the time.

The people on this planet were pretty much good-natured, but suspicious of the olive branch I was extending. They were worried that they would be forced into changing or accepting things they didn’t want to change or accept.

There was one group of young people that I was speaking with with equanimity. They were expressing these fears, and I told them that that was why I was there—so they could check me out and use their own intuitions and sense of judgment to decide. I added that nobody would force them to do anything; that we were instead offering them the choice, and that it was up to them to decide what they wanted to do.

And then I said the thing that stuck most in my mind when I awoke, as I think it is true for us today, now, in this time and space.

“When you do something out of fear, you are helping to create the kind of world you don’t want. When you do something that you feel is the right thing to do, perhaps despite your fear, you are helping to create the world you want.”

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