(Please Note: The following list of skills have broad life enhancement applicability for Universe Community members and if you are of a spiritual nature, practitioners of Evolution Spirituality. For those of you who want to create your own independent local centers, the following essential life skills list can be used by you to earn a "right livelihood" at your local center by providing these essential life skills in courses and various kinds of training. You can also collaborate with other independent centers on course and training development for these essential life skills or, you can provide your best art-of-living courses to other independent local centers for some form of fair exchange.)
Introduction
In addition to educating all members about the Universe Evolutionary Worldview and its Universe Principles, there are additional practical life skills that should be developed by every individual or within every organization and community. Some of these skills are derived directly or indirectly from the ideas and tools of the Universe Evolutionary Worldview and some are not.
This full collection of skills will serve to help more fully align one’s life, organization, or community to the universe’s proven core evolutionary directionality and its success and sustainability meta-patterns so as to increase the individual's or organizational's evolutionary fitness, adaptability, and control of the environment.
These 21st-century essential skill sets are Universe Spirit's way of extending and advancing our culture's ability to evolve human nature as far as it can go short of genetic engineering. Once these and other tools of cultural education have taken developing human nature as far as it can go, it is then time to add in the next level toolset for evolving human nature. But even if we come to the day when genetic engineering is commonplace individuals will still need to develop most if not all of the skill sets below.
These art-of-living basic life skills will also help you more effectively create a sustainable prosperity, a just civilization, and a thriving and meaningful future for all, which once again, also aligns with and forwards the progressive evolution of life and the universe.
These life skills are truly indispensable to successful, sustainable living and meaningful happiness and well-being in the 21st century and beyond! They are also essential to you learning how to become an effective agent of change for the restructuring and re-aligning of humanity's global economic, political and social systems to meet our current global challenges.
Today too many of our schools from the elementary level to our universities focus far too much on teaching the technical job skills and technical knowledge needed to earn a living in some specific field. Consequently, most of the following essential evolutionary art-of-living skills go mostly unattended to society's great loss. Collectively the art-of-living skills listed below, directly and indirectly, help one to more effectively manage life and evolution's most basic cycle, which is:
a.) experiment,
b.) become aware of the feedback from that experiment as quickly and as fully as possible and then,
c.) wisely adapt and improve your experiment through continual tinkering ---based upon that feedback and,
d.) better control your environment where possible.
When you read the following list you might also want to use it as a test or measurement of how well you are doing in each of the skills needed to become a fully successful, developed, and successful human being. To do this get a blank piece of paper. After you read each skill rate yourself from 1-10 with 10 being the highest score. Feel free to make notes after each rating.
This will be a real eye-opener for most individuals. The good news is that accurate awareness of this feedback is essential to making the adaptations and improvements necessary for a deeper, more meaningful, and sustainable success.
Please note:
a.) In the list below we have listed the level of difficulty of learning of each skill after each skill, i.e. (B) for Beginning level, (I) for intermediate, and (A) for advanced. That way you can use this list as a developmental checklist for individuals and for your local independent center.
b.) The list contains not only physical skills but also emotional and mental intelligence skills as well.
c.) The validity of these skills is also supported by evolution's deepest reoccurring success patterns (values.)
d.) Alignment with evolution's success is particularly relevant for Universe Community members and if you are of a spiritual nature and Evolution Spirituality practitioners. Having an ethical and personalized form of spirituality also strongly implies that certain essential personal life skills must also be developed by every individual in addition to any of the spiritual practices of Religion 2.0 Religion 1.5 or Religion 1.0 that you may adopt. The skills below definitely should be learned by Evolution Spirituality practitioners.
e.) This list is also a great curriculum of possible sequenced courses for individuals who want to start their own local centers or classes and create right livelihood incomes for themselves and their local centers.
f.) These skills are also the practical life skills that all authentic practicing planetary citizens, universe citizens, Evolutioneers and Universe Community members will need to eventually acquire to fulfill and effectively execute both their potentials and their responsibilities.
The Art-of-Living Life Skills:
The following list is not in any form of priority of order that is essential to be done by every Universe Spirit member (or Evolution Spirituality student if you are of a spiritual nature.) The art-of-living skills listed below can be prioritized according to both a student's interest and their current most critical skill need level.
The Art-of-Living Life Skills Pre-Requisite Basics:
In order to learn or function effectively in any area of life and learn new skills, there are certain prerequisites being met or unmet that will eventually also predict the learning and other success and sustainability of any individual.
Those determinative prerequisite life basics are:
a.) Good Sleep Habits of 7-8 hours a night. (A good night's sleep can easily be considered 30% of the reason behind one's daily success. Sleep deprivation and sleep inadequacy plague modern society's productivity and behavioral issues.)
b.) Good Nutrition Habits.
c.) Good Exercise Habits.
d.) Good Stress Management habits.
e.) Rehabilitation from any addictive substance problems i.e. recreational drugs, alcohol, prescription drug abuse, etc.
If you discover that in yourself (or in those that come to you for skill training and education,) that these core basics are missing or weak --- FIRST do everything you can to educate and support the individual in making these critical changes before or during their work on the master list of life skills below. It will make a world of difference in getting and sustaining dramatic results!
The Last Prerequisite:
The last prerequisite for working on the skills below is having a basic understanding of progressive evolution and the Universe Principles. Without that basic familiarity of evolution and its processes, one will not see how the essential life skills below fit together or why they work, or why they are necessary.
The Master List of Art-of-Living Life Skills:
The essential art-of-living life skills necessary to be a successful human being and an effective and responsible Evolutioneer, Universe Citizen and Universe Community (or if you are of a spiritual nature a Evolution Spirituality member,) at this critical transition period in human history are:
- Releasing your potentials, (See and read Spiral Dynamics for an excellent intermediate-level overview of the full developmental process that healthy individuals, organizations, and cultures go through as they evolve and develop their full potentials. This book is a great overview of the total developmental process that you will be going through on the journey of evolving life. It will help you understand your continually evolving values as you realize your own fullest human developmental potentials, It also contains many processes for exactly how to release the next stage and level of your currently dormant developmental potential.)
- Creativity training, (The universe is the most constantly creative thing in existence. We all need creativity training too!) (I)
- Present tense awareness training including attention focusing training for maintaining a discriminate observation of the ongoing feedback in the present moment, (This awareness initially starts with sensing awareness of one’s immediate physical universe then it normally expands to increasing self-awareness then expands to increasing awareness of “other” as selves, which then expands to increasing awareness of the greater physical Universe and eventually if you are spiritually inclined, toward awareness of Ultimate Reality. There are many different forms of present moment meditation training to help do this.) (B)
- Acknowledgment and acceptance of the “isnesses” of life training. This is the practice of being consciously aware and in nonresistance to the ever-changing unfolding “isnesses” of life. This is also being aware and repeatedly practicing that because the ever-unfolding universe “just is” --- there are NO intrinsic deficiencies in whatever emerges. (B)
- Adaptability training, (I)
- Rational/analytical thinking training. (I)
- Self-organization training, (I)
- Self-discipline training, (this also should include stress management training.) (B)
- Personal responsibility training, (I)
- Personal Productivity and time management training, (I)
- Fair exchange determination and training skills, (I)
- Consequence acceptance and consequence management training, (The universe is constantly presenting us with the direct and indirect consequences of our and our team's actions. to adapt and thrive we must be able to quickly accept our consequences and manage them.)
- Personal Centering skills for managing life's increasing complexity and finding an internal stabilizing simplicity for countering today’s constantly increasing speed of change in almost all areas of life. This includes voluntary simplicity lifestyle training. (B)
- Communication skills training, (B)
- Cooperation training, (Learning how to create the right dynamic balance between individual rights and freedom and group rights and responsibilities as well as what are the proper individual contributions towards support of the communities in which one is embedded.) (B)
- Relationship training, (mate, family, friends, associates.) (B)
- Thought and emotion dis-embedding training (until a person recognizes that they are not their thoughts or emotions and that they have thoughts and emotions and, that they can observe and manage their thoughts and emotions as they manage any other exterior object they will be less able to control themselves or manage their lives optimally. Dialectical thinking training for those over 26 is just one of the ways to train these thought and emotion dis-embedding skills.) (I)(A)
- Personal and group conflict resolution, mediation, arbitration, and negotiation skills, (I)
- Efficient Task and Task Cycle Completion training: learning how to get something done in the most efficient way and learning how to recognize that when something is done let go of it and then, recycle whatever could be recycled and move on! (B)
- Sustainability training, (this is how to save and steward the planet's resources and biosphere. This is currently Job One for Humanity. See Universe College sustainability courses.) (B)
- The new financial management skills for creating a sustainable, prepared and appropriate lifestyle having essential reserves, (See the book "Your Money or Your Life" for more details on this new style of money management.) (I)
- Emergency preparedness, resilience training, and reserves building. (Escalating climate destabilization caused by global warming is getting worse in what could be an exponential curve. We will need to have emergency well prepared and reserves-resilient families, groups, businesses, communities, and nations. See Job One for Humanity Part One for more information on preparedness training and reserves building. We have listed preparedness training as an essential art of living skill due to the current seriousness of global warming and the many other challenges humanity now faces.) (B)
- Celebration and rewards training: Creating both personal and group deep satisfaction, pleasure, and reward acceptance for successful evolutionary living. And where necessary in relation to learning relevant sustainability factors, (B)
- Systems thinking training, (A)
- Training on the new dialectical meta-systemic thinking for managing interacting and interpenetrating complex living and non-living transforming systems. The new meta-systemic dialectical thinking creates better future prediction and future modeling, which then creates more optimally informed and wise decision-making training than is possible with only the traditional rational/analytical thinking, (A)
- Enhancing cognitive and mental development, (See Measuring Hidden Dimensions of Human Systems
by Professor Otto Laske for the best work on the stages and levels of adult cognitive development levels and skills.
- Enhancing socio-emotional development, See Measuring Hidden Dimensions: the Art and Science of Fully Engaging Adults by Otto Laske. (Details the socio-emotional side of human development.)
Community Building and Maintaining Art-of-Living Skills:
- Group Cooperation training, (Learning how to create the right dynamic balance between individual rights and freedom and the proper group rights and responsibilities for the individual and their support and protection.) (B)
- How to Create sustainable group order, harmony, and transparency, (I)
- How to have effective community meetings and decision-making. (I)
- How to create and maintain universe-interest aligned group education, management, and governance, (A)
- How to create robustness, redundancies, and reserves for individuals and groups to ensure against temporary loss of productivity in individuals or groups, rare, very large-impact catastrophic negative consequences, future uncertainties, and black swans, (Black swans are unpredictable events with consequences of huge or exponential impacts.) and, (B)
- Systems thinking training, (Communities are complex evolutionary systems and react as complex evolutionary systems. Leaders of communities should always be trained in systems and dialectical meta-systems thinking.) (A)
- Training on the new dialectical meta-systemic thinking for managing interacting and interpenetrating complex living and nonliving transforming systems. The new meta-systemic dialectical thinking creates better future prediction and future modeling, which then creates more optimally informed and wise decision-making training than is possible with only the traditional rational/analytical thinking, (A)
- Emergency crisis and collapse recovery training, If climate destabilization continues from catastrophic levels toward irreversible levels and we do not cross that tipping point, individuals, communities, and nations all over the planet will have to know what strategies can be used to best expedite and strengthen the recovery to a new and better place. (I)
Special Evolutionary Art-of-Living Attitudinal and Perspective Skills:
In addition to the above more physical or mental art-of-living skills, there are vital perspective and attitudinal art-of-living skills also based on the new Universe Evolutionary Worldview. These skills need to be practiced until they become second nature.
The perspective and attitudinal art-of-living skills for Universe Evolutionaries, Universe Citizens, and Universe community members are:
- Recognizing and Being in the oneness of the universe and in ultimate union with all within it. (This naturally also includes interdependence, interconnection, and sharing in our relationship training. (B)
- Finding hope, encouragement, and peace in the truth of knowing that known evolutionary progress is the best it's ever been!” (B)
- Being delighted by the adventure that everything is constantly embraced in the ongoing evolutionary process. (B)
- Being delighted that everything evolving for the good of the universe as a whole. (B)
- Enjoying existing in a universe that is filled with energy and matter sharing the abundance of every kind. Living in this abundance and sharing it. (Gracefulness, un-attachment, appropriate self-confidence, politeness, acknowledgments and respect and, even patience are just a few of the many different and legitimate forms of abundance sharing.) (B)
- Being secure in knowing that life's truly unpredictable surprises and spontaneities are the necessary uncertainties that will somehow be used by future universe evolution and are in essence the source of hope in the universe. (B)
- Living as a co-creational partner with the universe by consciously evolving oneself, one's groups, and the universe in alignment with the universe’s proven life-sustaining success patterns found within these Universe principles of Sustainability. (B)
- Embracing the fact that you are living in a learning universe where ... your life will be as successful, safe, and sustainable in direct proportion to how well you have learned to align your (and your groups,) actions to the proven life-sustaining success patterns of the universe’s progressive evolution. (B)
The Traditional Art-of Living Skills:
- Technical learning, knowledge, and specialized job skills training (doctor, lawyer, mechanic, etc.,) to help a person find fair, meaningful, and sustainable “Right Livelihood” for sustainable fair exchanges with the community and world. (This is more the venue of traditional trade schools or specialized departments in universities.) (B)
- Scientific Methodology. (I)
All of the above art-of-living skills are well integrated into the three classical and most needed knowledge types for a successful life. (Click here to see those three most needed classical knowledge types.
Unfortunately, the above more complete and balanced list of essential art-of-living skills are never learned by most people. Most people learn very few of these and just focus on some form of technical learning, knowledge, or specialized job skills training (doctor, lawyer, mechanic, etc.,) to earn a living.
Most times our current learning institutions believe that the individual's parents or religious group or, prior school or, other outside learning institution has already taught many of these things to the student in front of them. Consequently, they do not teach them and even if they did teach these skills, they would still be teaching these skills from the vastly smaller and less useful perspectives of the pre-Universe Evolutionary Worldview era.
On this website, we seek to incorporate and teach all of the above art-of-living skills. Currently, we are in the process of finding and gleaning the best solutions to these areas currently existing within society and then upgrading and aligning them with the new perspectives of the Universe Principles and the Universe Evolutionary Worldview. This is vitally important because the above art-of-living skills will empower realistic hope based upon new, more effective tools and lifestyle and livelihood models based upon the Universe Evolutionary Worldview for creating a more stainable prosperity, a just civilization, and a thriving and meaningful future for all, which also forwards the forward evolution of life in the universe.