So, now that you completely understand this theory, are you all ready to bring about world peace by next week? Just kidding! Imagining the effort involved to consider all these dimensions at each of the various levels of community is rather daunting, isn't it? Let's put it in perspective.

Learning how to live as an integral communal being is a journey of discovery, and it's not an overnight trip! Most of us, especially in the West, have been raised in a culture of competition and aggression. Although peace and harmony are actually available right now, it may be the journey of lifetimes to be able to sustain health and harmony as the human way of life. In a sense, we're all wisdom community toddlers in pre-school! We need to respect our learning process and measure our progress accordingly.

Therefore, we proclaim no definitive integral test. The true test will ultimately be given by our great-great-grandkids. We consider community healing and development work to be integral if it consciously does its best to practice what we call 360° Vision and the Wisdom Attitude.

360° Vision You are probably already participating in multiple dimensions of community in your own life. Maybe you do environmental work with your child's school, belong to a prayer circle in your spiritual community, and play bridge with your neighbors. Do you need to run for political office so that you're doing something in every quadrant to pass the integral test? Do the community organizations that you care about need to feed the homeless and save the whales and cure cancer to qualify as integral?

We say not. This model beautifully demonstrates that there is a place for everyone and that no one needs to be every place. For instance, we folks at WisdomSpace honor the work in all the directions but have already discovered that we personally can't do it all. Having drawn the map of the whole field, we were initially tempted to participate in many areas but learned the hard way (through temporary insanity. . .) that our focus is at the integral circle spot, strengthening the connection between the inner personal and the communal dimension. Stay tuned for more of this story in our future Case Study chapter.

If you're like us and sometimes have the tendency to feel guilty for not doing enough (or feel overwhelmed by not knowing where to start), it can be a relief to see that whatever we love to do is an important, necessary piece of the overall puzzle and that we don't have to do it all. We can trust that there are many other wise folks around us holding the other pieces. Once we develop a broader perspective of how what each of us is doing fits in to the bigger picture, we can relax into walking our own path of wisdom while appreciating and respecting the journey of those on the path beside us. The wisdom to see & honor the other dimensions is part of our integral criteria.

Before you breathe too big a sigh of relief, we'll add that while you or your organization can live happily ever after wherever you feel at home on the integral community map, we invite you to consider paying a visit to other dimensions. For example, your bridge club could organize a road cleanup, or your lobbying group could sit in silent contemplation about its work for five minutes (one step at a time!). We'll ask you to share your thoughts about what 360° Vision might mean for you in the BacktoYou section.

Wisdom Attitude

Wisdom develops more from an attitude than from factual knowledge. Wisdom involves an intention and a commitment to deliberately grow step by step toward being more inclusive, more comprehensive, and more compassionate. On the one hand, learning to see with an integral systems lens can be challenging because it often requires re-learning what we've been taught by our culture of specialization and compartmentalization. On the other hand, once you begin to see the whole puzzle, life tends to make intuitive sense since our worldview reflects the true interconnected nature of how things really are. In the next book: How to recognize a wisdom attitude when you meet one.