Shanti Pax launched a peace process. This is blog #3 of a 10-blog series called, “The Peace Process: Your 10 Most Powerful Actions for Lasting Peace.” These are the top 10 actions you can take to be AT PEACE during your day and ADD PEACE to the world.
Your 3rd most powerful action is to: Love and live from the heart.
I love a good spy story. Spy stories are chocked full of exotic adventure, good looking men (and women), secrecy, and intricate twists.
James Bond, of course, is the ultimate spy. He’s dapper, unflappable, and a lady magnet on a mission to sip the perfect martini and kill bad guys. Bond is the quintessential good vs evil. And in the end, James Bond wins when he’s killed all the villains and miscreants.
But what if true winning isn’t about killing the bad guys, but instead loving them?
Changing the James Bond formula
Imagine for a second that James Bond receives a mission from M to destroy the evil terrorist organization, SPECTRE, that is plotting to disrupt an American manned space launch with a radio beam weapon.
But instead of infiltrating SPECTRE’s compound to kill all the nondescript guards and ultimately kill the evil mastermind behind it all, Dr. Julius No, Bond decides to embark on a journey to find out why Dr. No is a reclusive megalomaniac who wants to wreak havoc on the world.
Bond defies M’s orders and travels to Dr. No’s childhood home in Beijing to discover Dr. No was abandoned by his German father and Chinese mother and bullied as a child by his classmates. Then Bond goes on to uncover all the reasons why Dr. No wants to seek revenge and do evil.
In the end, Bond compels Dr. No to confront his fears and release them; he shows Dr. No that hurting others is only a way to hurt himself. And the climax of the story is when James Bond says, “I love you, Dr No, and I accept you just as you are.” This leads Dr. No to a personal breakthrough, and he begins to dismantle SPECTRE piece by piece.
If you’re a spy story purist, you may be rolling your eyes hard right now. But to my mind this has all the components of a great story. We’re just changing the final scene to one of love and personal growth. And to be clear, convincing Dr. No to confront his fears and end the terrorist business is a far greater challenge than just killing him.
“Love as much as you can from wherever you are.” -Thaddeus Golas
The James Bond concept of good guys vs bad guys can be applied to our own lives. Instead of labeling the people in our lives and around the world we view as “bad” or “different,” we add more peace to the world when we try to understand their behavior, are aware of what has been done to them in the past, and view the world through their eyes.
In recent years, there has been growing recognition among Western militaries that they cannot kill and capture their way out of modern day wars because killing only creates more enemies. This has been accompanied by an awareness that it’s not as simple as good guys vs bad guys, and that we are all both good and bad depending on the point of view.
The bottom line is we all have a good guy and a bad guy inside of us, we’re all interconnected, and we’re all trying to find our way in this world – wanting to hear from our greatest critiques, often ourselves, “I love you and accept you – just the way you are.”
What do you think? What do you think of the new James Bond model for storytelling where winning is about personal growth, not killing bad guys? Is that a book you’d want to read or a movie you’d like to watch? Do you think Hollywood could spend more time making movies that encourage personal growth over seeking revenge?
Take action! I challenge you to identify the bad guys or villains in your life, and to see if there is anyway you could find love in your heart for them. And remember, often our biggest enemy is ourselves, so I challenge you to spend some time today loving yourself.
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Remember, it’s the little changes you make in your daily life that brings greater peace to the whole.
