Being human creatures we are creators of the human experience. The origin of our creations rests in the mind of us, the creators. The system of beliefs and values held in our mind—the ideas and visions we enact—pre-figure our experiences, and yes our reality.

For example, the economic/business experiences we have are largely manifestations of the ideas about being human that the architects of the economic system held in mind and that we enact in our daily lives.  This way-of-being in the world—which was someone’s vision—is never given a critical thought.  We’ve become so attached to this notion of ourselves as material self-interested maximizing beings that we simply order our life accordingly without ever stopping to challenge the notion.

So what are the implications?  If we don’t like the experiences we are giving ourselves then we ought to challenge the ideas and vision we put into practice about what being human means.

To improve the system of education we must first align our vision—the why we need to learn—with our very nature, recognizing that learning is integral to the development of a human being through out life. Because we rely on learning far more than any other species, learning facts is not as helpful to our development as is learning how to think and learn at the higher levels.

To improve our system of economics and the way we conduct and manage business requires first an alignment of vision with our very nature recognizing that work provides the means for each of us to actualize our (human) potential: That being humanly productive is far more critical to our development as persons, than being materially productive.  While material productivity brings pleasure, being humanly productive brings us joy.  Having great wealth but being humanly underdeveloped still makes for an unfulfilled life.

We have met the cause of our difficulties and it is the (unchallenged) notion of being human that we are enacting in the very way we design and manage our systems.  Therefore, if we wish to have better and more meaningful experiences—in our education and economic systems—then we need to develop and enact a better and more meaningful vision of human life in this world.  Driving for results, accountability and all other methods of force can’t possibly add meaning and improve our way-of-being in this world. We only can enact, and not react, our way out of unfulfilling and meaningless life experiences we provide our self and each other.