To guide the conscious social evolution of a society, we must first be able to reframe our relationship to it, much like a planetary manager, to gain the perspective of being “outside” of society. Then we can view it by looking on to it, rather than being “in it” where everything is too close to gain an objective view of it all.

Earth’s history of civilizations is littered with failures. All societies and all civilizations have failed. Ours will also. There is one possibility, however, that could very well change the dismal trajectory of all democratic nations. That possibility lies in having an ongoing consciousness to observe ourselves making similar mistakes as other societies in history; then have the presence of mind to ask, “What is necessary to transcend our existence so that democratic societies endure for centuries and millennia?”

I think the first step is to see our societies as “social organisms” in much the same way as we perceive the progressive developmental stages of an infant-becoming-an-adult. The development of a child is to become an adult, to make decisions that support his or her growth and the development of their innate potential. That means the child assigns to itself increasing levels of responsibility for the decisions that he or she must make so that they do grow into a fully responsible and powerful individual.

In this perspective, a self-aware, self-directed, self-organizing and self-adjusting society has never existed before. What we are asking ourselves to do is much like a child raising itself to become a fully responsible and fully actualizing adult! We have no previous successful democratic models to follow. We have no mentors or parental figures to guide us. The key to this proposition is to become self-aware — self-aware of “what works” and “what does not work” that leads to, or prevents us from, ongoing sustainability.

Without such a mentor or model, we will need is a reliable, consistent and universal guide for the development of sustainable options, choice-making, decision-making and action/implementation that points toward a sustainable future. This has not existed before. But, it does today. To create sustainable, self-monitoring and self-adjusting societies all organizations that support that society must necessarily begin to apply the three values that have sustained our species for 40,000 – 500,000 years. Profit-making and a consistently black bottom line will not assure a corporation that it will be in existence in 50 years. Neither are good intentions and good decisions by foundations and churches. More is not needed: Sustainable option development and actions.