WORKING AS HELPERS

Working to ensure the survival of the human family is absolutely a critical project. We must prepare the human family to survive the dangers of the universe --those we are experiencing now and those we know are coming. Our initial step is to help by sharing a vision with true information as well as accurate and realistic evaluation as a guide to wise and successful choices.

As individuals, ultimately we die. The human family continues through reproduction and, hopefully, always in an environment that encourages the positive behaviors that sustaining life will require. We, as individuals alive today, have some number of years left, then it's the kids, the grandkids and many generations.

It's the vision and the accomplishments we pass on that are important to creating humans that exert their best efforts to ensure survival, while pursuing the individual happiness we wish for each of them. Human progress is only made by the work of people and we genuinely need individuals to commit to this effort. This is the time to make a commitment.

Little efforts help. Big accomplishments help. Any effort in the right direction helps. Many worthwhile efforts will not be rewarded or recognized (sometimes that's a blessing), but children will be born who benefit from the effort. And hope for the human family will grow.

Actually, many people are helping the human family in important ways and such people have repeatedly appeared over the thousands of years of our existence. They've given encouragement and consolation to those whose situations were painful and hopeless. Or they've persevered against difficulties and discovered helpful and vital information, ideas or inventions. They've done such small things as errands for the disabled or secured some food for the hungry. They organized worldwide groups to aid those in need, such as orphans, those with diseases or those in a disaster. We are so much better off for these efforts.

The work of the helpers of The Helper Project is different, but not more important. Our starting point is creating and sharing a vision that will ensure the human family exerts the efforts that will be required of us. This especially includes eliminating, as much as possible, the near universal and dominating fears that cause people to do cruel acts. The fears deny them choices necessary to enjoy the wonderful existence of being human and pursuing happiness - while intertwining that pursuit with choices that create the best hope for the survival of us all. We must envision the broad view of the situation and explain it, so that wise choices become more obvious and effective actions are a regular routine.

The problems are very difficult and complex to solve. Simply eliminating the self-destructive behaviors we've acquired may take, in some of the worst scenarios, centuries; and the clock is moving towards a major crisis, perhaps, the limits of our existence. Is the effort worth it in a world so burdened that few will care? What really works? Is my role really important? Where do I start?

Those are some of the many thoughts you'll have as you ponder a commitment to the efforts to aid the human family. Hopefully, more and more of us will answer those questions in the positive way.

Actually, you don't have to participate any further in a formal manner. You can be a helper if you've read the Survival Essay, or have learned some other way, that life on earth is a very delicate and fragile situation. If you simply proceed in life seeking to share and apply concepts that improve our chances of survival, you're a partner in this work.

However, a special group of active helpers is needed. We can accelerate the creation of a world effort that reaches its greatest effect sooner if some of us cooperate. And by sharing our information, analysis and conclusions, we can eliminate more errors as well as reduce the waste of time and our small resources. The right vision will save the lives of many individuals and may enable life from earth to deal successfully with the threats to our future.

It seems that certain outlooks about life, as well as other qualities, would strengthen helpers. Sometimes, some of the efforts will not bring good results; or the struggle may seem lonely, and its value may come to be questioned.

No matter how bad things seem, you should be determined to exert as much effort as you can afford while seeking to improve our situation. The effort should be balanced with your own right to happiness; although for some, this becomes not only a charitable mission but a very interesting pursuit. Helping manage Planet Earth can be an exciting project. It certainly is worthwhile and has lots of surprises.

You don't believe that things "will always be this way," meaning destruction, killing, aggression, stealing, corruption and discouragement. You recognize the troubles of life, but you see the possibilities for good. You realize that good occurs largely because people work to create it. If you make a commitment, you have decided to be one of these workers.

It also helps if you understand that, while you might have answers, you are not always right. The best proposed answers must meet the test of exploration for error by the analysis and evaluation of others. It's answers that actually work, hopefully the first time, that we are after. People's lives and the human family are at risk. We must succeed.

The Survival Essay has explored some of the tools long utilized by the human family for success. Anticipatory thought seeks to reveal what's ahead and may require action. Making wise choices is usually dependent upon reliable and complete information. The size of the problems will require cooperation as well as a division of labor. Currently, our social structure, and historical momentum, requires that we seek to organize and cooperate through the governments of nearly 200 countries: government must be a device for cooperation. And the entire process is guided by a vision, hopefully propelling us on the survival pathway with a minimum loss of time and resources.

The formula proposed in the Survival Essay for the situation being experienced by the human family is that people would be changed by vision and empowered by hope. And it was proposed that the vision itself would create our initial source of hope. We need a vision we can share.

This essay is an investment in that formula. It attempts to encompass, in the widest range possible, a vision of the current circumstances of humanity on earth and the processes and tools available to us.

Unfortunately, the pattern of our problems, and the scope and complexity of our human situation relative to our survival, can take a lifetime to perceive -- and that's rather late in life to join in effective survival efforts. The vision we create must enable us to provide it to young people as they reach adulthood. And it must be so powerfully correct that they can regularly make good choices as well as expend some of their lives on the solutions. It must be a vision we can use to effectively empower the coming generations.

It was wished that the essay would be perfect. It is not. And that problem presents the opportunity to begin a list of efforts and jobs that can be undertaken by those commiting to be helpers.

The Survival Essay is the fundamental working tool of the Helper Project and it must be improved to be a far more perfect tool for this critical effort. It can be improved by working together to reveal its flaws and then inserting the necessary additions or corrections.

Helpers are invited to propose word changes or improvements to sentences. You may propose substitute paragraphs or entire sections or chapters. It may be that its structure could be altered to provide a better flow to the narration or more correctly organize its concepts. There's no turf to be defended here. We need the best vision we can develop to guide the human family for a long time.

As workable suggestions are received, they will be integrated into the vision. The Survival Essay will be modified quarterly or semi-annually as needed, until it is worthy of its purpose.

It may be that you prefer to propose solutions to some of the problems presented in the essay. You might set up a site for your proposals and the Helper Project site will list the sites suggesting solutions or specific actions. It may be that the text of a limited number can be included on this site.

Many of the helpers will want to participate in the work through this site and they will be welcomed. Or you may prefer to create your own version as an alternative vision or guide for the helpers and the human family. The Helper Project will list your site for referral.

A major goal for the Helper Project is to perfect a document that can be passed to each generation to provide guidance. It should make it easier to understand our situation and problems. And assisting to perfect it to serve its purpose is a critical task.

Another problem is that the humans of earth cannot communicate as a family. This essay is written in English. But only 5 to 10 percent of the human family can read it. It needs to be translated into the other major languages of earth, so that a genuine discussion of our future can take place among the people of our planet.

Good ideas can come from people in any language group. If efforts to translate the Survival Essay are made, we will provide a listing of them in a special language section.

The views examined in the Survival Essay have implications for a large sector of life among humans. It may be that you are active in public life anywhere from the local to the international level. You may be able to ensure that the broad and necessary perspectives for our survival are considered in many decisions. The sooner the factors needed for our long-term survival are integrated into major choices, the better off we'll be. You can be a helper in these activities.

You may be able or prefer to organize opportunities for public education classes or forums. Enabling people to discuss these matters, and to provide information that encourages the development of a viewpoint that we must function as a human family seeking survival, would be very helpful. The Survival Essay could easily be divided into sections for once-a-week presentation and discussion sessions over 6 to 10 weeks. And more people would join us.

One more obvious activity you might participate in is recruiting more participants for the Helper Project. Cooperation in the human family will be built by creating links between ourselves - one by one. Invite others to read the Survival Essay or explain it to them. Some may have ideas to contribute and everyone has labor or resources to share. We need all the help we can get.

What is at stake is the hope that the human family can continue to exist and that the lives we live will be filled with as much freedom as possible to pursue happiness for ourselves. The struggle for human freedom, as bigger and bigger systems developed, began a long time ago and is equally as critical as we create a future. We must ensure survival and protect the essence of the experience of being alive.

Hopefully, some of you reading this are ready to make a commitment and will choose to be helpers.

We will be working to preserve life on earth and in the universe -- for each of us. The process will require people who focus their commitment from the vantage point of all of us seeking the opportunity to pursue happiness and in need of the basics to survive. And living in a beautiful but dangerous universe.

The Helper Project simply asks for that commitment to the human family and its hopes for survival. We have a long way to go. Come to work, HELPERS!