Well-Being for all

This morning I was perusing some sites I frequent (see list to the right) and I read this on one of them, “…[a] state of mind in which you're willing to allow Well-Being into your experience no matter what the conditions. To me, Well-Being is an ever-present, always available resource. You don't need to earn it, you just have to let it in! Children are naturally allowing in this way, but over time they learn to disallow the experience of Well-Being under certain conditions. Our cultural values are conditional: we grew up learning that happiness has to be earned. Conventional schooling is a major factor in the formation of the conditional worldview and the habit of disallowing Well-Being.” http://www.enjoyparenting.com/hem-interview

My immediate thought: What would this world be like if it was normal or more common for people to let Well-Being in? My answer: Radically different. I see this inability to allow the natural experience of Well-Being, as the root cause of so much unnecessary suffering in this world. For example, think about what would happen to prejudice (a deep lack of trust) if everyone had an experience of Well-Being instead of feeling like it was a scarce resource that had to be earned. It would disappear or at least be greatly diminished because everyone would be able to experience themselves as trustworthy whole beings and so that would ripple outwards.

In the Educational Opportunity (EO) that I am creating, my focus in terms of curriculum will be focused on Well-Being. I think it is so important to nurture and feed that in children instead of making it something they have to earn. I say death to gold stars and A’s and oh yeah to the celebration of the greatness that lives in all children (and in ourselves)!