Development Comes from Within
The process of human, community, and economic development unfolds from within each person, relationship, family organization, community, or nation.
Outsiders can often provide catalytic support in the form of inspiration, technical backstopping, training, or simple love and caring. But because the essence of what development is entails learning and the transformation of consciousness, there is no way to escape the need for an inner-directed flow of energy.
For example, a child learning to ride a bicycle may need a certain amount of encouragement, and may even require a bigger person running alongside her to support the bike while she learns how to balance. Still, there is no getting around the need for the child herself to get up on the bike and to try to ride it.
No amount of explaining, or riding the bike back and forth in front of the child to demonstrate how to ride, will replace doing it. As well, sooner or later, the person guiding the learning has to let go of the bike and let the rider move forward into full control of their destiny.
In a similar way, people who are struggling to learn new patterns of life and to transform their world need to create and guide change processes themselves, if those processes are to be effective and sustainable. Our individual and collective development comes from within.
