As far back as I can remember, I wanted to save the world.

It was a secret.

Young Michael believed in God. I don’t think that he discussed that idea with the God he believed in. That now looks like a mistake. How does believing in God and yet not discussing what matters most to you with God make sense?

It doesn’t. Except to the ego.

I had plenty of ego.

Ego always says: “I’ll do it alone.” Ego always says: “I’ll find my own way.” Ego always says: “I’m special.” My ego always said, “I’m smarter than everyone else.”

To the ego, “everyone else” included God.

But the ego is full of shit and always will be.

That’s what Steven Pressfield writes in his book, “The War of Art.” Pressfield calls it Resistance, not ego. But I think it’s the same anti-divine force that “A Course In Miracles” (and I) call ego. I’ll change Pressfield’s words to match:

The ego does not want to save the world. It wants to condemn the world. It wants to rule the world.

That’s different.

But try telling that to the ego!

If your work is creative, the Ego is the Enemy. That’s a book by Ryan Holliday.

Ego wants to stop you.

Growing up

I had to grow up, decide that saving the world was a foolish idea, grow up some more.

I had to get angry at the God that I had believed in.

I had to decide that the God I had believed in didn’t exist.

I had to create Hell and live in Hell for a while and learn what it took to leave.

I had to learn that I could be a dick while telling myself I was a saint.

I had to learn that trying to hurt people and telling myself that they deserved it was wrong.

I had to learn that whoever else I tried to hurt, I always hurt myself.

I had to learn that drinking poison and hoping it would make other people die was not a good life strategy.

Or maybe I didn’t have to do those things to learn those things. But I did.

Little by little, I learned.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness. Asking and giving.

When I finally apologized to my Mom, she said, “You never hurt me. You hurt your father, not me.”

I said, “I knew I’d hurt him, and I knew I probably wouldn’t hurt you, but I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t try.” She nodded because that made sense to the kind of people we’d been.

I had to learn that to forgive myself, I needed to be able to forgive anyone for anything less than what I had done. And why not for anything more?

So I learned forgiveness and practiced forgiveness.

“Forgiveness! Can you imagine? Forgiveness.” Every time I heard that, in the song “It’s quiet downtown” from Hamilton, I’d burst into tears.

I learned about Hoʻoponopono, the Hawaiian practice of forgiveness. You pick someone and then think (or say):

And I’d burst into tears. I wrote about it here.

Things changed. And changed. And changed again, as they do.

Thank you, past me

I reached an inflection point in 2017 when I wrote this post: “Thank you past me. Thank you, random stranger.”

I resented Past Me. “Fuck you for all the things you did and didn’t do that would have made my life better.”

I had no interest in Future Me. “What the fuck have you ever done for me that I should make sacrifices for you?.”

That changed. I became grateful toward Past Me: “I have a great life, and you have given me what I have.”

I felt love for Future Me: “I’ve been given gifts. Let me pay them forward.”

Back to saving the world

There have been more lessons learned since then. And then, in 2019, I started learning about A Course In Miracles. Miracles are the result of forgiveness, the course teaches.

Near the end of last year, I started doing the lessons with my sister. It has been transformative. Or maybe it’s just accelerated an ongoing transformation.

Yesterday I was doing Lesson 64, and I realized that I was back on the road to saving the world that I had left so long ago.

I don’t believe in God the way that Young Michael did. I’m probably incapable of that kind of naive belief. But I do believe in saving the world, and I believe that it’s my job.

“My job is saving the world” sounds arrogant. When I write it, even to me, it sounds that way. But that’s just the sound of it, not the truth of it.

It would be more arrogant to say: “Saving the world? Not my job, man.”

I’m not special for deciding to take on the job. It’s a job anyone can take on. There’s nothing special in doing what anyone can do.

Or maybe I’m special, but I’m special the same way everyone else is special. And that makes me not special.

The Big Bang theory, the science’s origin story of the universe, says that the universe's farthest reaches are equidistant in every direction from every point in the universe. Observation backs that up.

That puts each of us in a special place: at the center of the universe.

If being at the center of the universe is special, we are all special because we are each at the center. And none of us is special because we’re all at the center.

So I take it on as my job, this time with less ego.

Can I complete the job?

Does it matter?

I don’t see a job that’s more worth doing. So why not take it on?

If not me, who? If not now, when?

How do I go about it?

Forgiveness.

Can you imagine?