If you feel the truth in these words, then I invite you to open your heart and help me to change the world. Of course, the very first question is: How are you going to change the world? The answer is easy. By changing your world. When I ask you to help me to change the world, I’m not talking about planet Earth. I’m referring to the world that exists in your head. You will not change the world if you don’t change your own world first. The change begins with you. You will change the world by loving yourself, by enjoying life, by making your personal world a dream of heaven. And I ask you for your help because you are the only one who can make this change.

If you decide that you want to help me change the world, the easiest way is by practicing five agreements: Be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t make assumptions. Always do your best. Be skeptical, but learn to listen. These are the tools to change your world, to change the world, and they are nothing but pure common sense. If you practice these five agreements, if you make them your way of life, there won’t be any more war in your head. There won’t be any more war with your loved ones. There will be peace. 

By adopting these Five Agreements, your world becomes better, and you want to share your happiness with the people you love. But changing the world is not about changing the secondary characters in your life story. If you want to change the world, the way to do it is by changing the main character. When you change the main character, you change the message that you deliver to yourself. Then just like magic, all the secondary characters start to change, because the message that you deliver to them changes. 

You deliver a message every time you speak. The question is: do you deliver the truth, or do you deliver lies? When the message you deliver comes from truth and love, you are happier. And just by being happier, everyone benefits because your joy, your happiness, your heaven are contagious. When you are happy, the people around you are happy too, and it inspires them to change their own world.

Every human uses the word to deliver a message. The message we deliver is our legacy, and our legacy can be love; it can be joy; it can be happiness. When we were children, we received a wonderful world, and it’s our turn to offer our children and grandchildren a planet where they can live as wonderfully and as well as we do now. We can stop destroying our planet; we can stop destroying one another. We are meant to love one another, not to hate one another. Let’s stop believing that our differences make us superior or inferior to one another. Let’s not believe that lie. Let’s not be afraid that our different colors make us different people. Who cares? It’s just another lie. 
We don’t have to believe all the lies and superstitions that control our lives. We can return to the truth, and be messengers of truth. It’s not true that we come to this planet to suffer. This beautiful planet Earth is not a valley of tears. This is the time to end all the lies and superstitions that are not helping anybody. The legacy that we leave to our children and grandchildren can be magnificent. We can change our whole way of thinking, and show them how to have a love affair with life. Our new way of thinking can replace all the lies and take us to a wonderful place to live life. 

Wherever I go, I hear people say that we come here with a mission, that we have something to do or transcend in this life. I believe that we come here with a mission, but our mission is not really to transcend anything. The mission that we have is to make ourselves happy. The “how” could be millions of different ways of doing what we love to do, but the mission of our life is to enjoy every single moment of our life. Sooner or later our physical bodies will no longer exist. We only have a few sunrises, a few sunsets, a few full moons that we can enjoy. This is our time to be alive, to be fully present, to enjoy ourselves, to enjoy one another.

Humans can live in harmony. I know that we have our differences, but we can respect one another’s differences. We can agree to work together, knowing that each of us has our own point of view. It’s incredible what we can do if we really want to do it. All we need is to be aware of what we are doing, and to return to the authenticity we were born with. Help me to change the world is an invitation to be authentic, to follow your heart, to be free of superstitions and lies. And I’m not asking you to try to change the world. Don’t try; just do it. Take the action today. 

In the last century, science and technology have grown so fast, but psychology has stayed far behind. It’s time for psychology to catch up with science and technology. It’s time to change our beliefs about the human mind, and what I see right now is almost an emergency, because with computers and the Internet the way they are right now, lies can go all around the world very quickly and get completely out of control. The time is coming when humans will no longer believe in lies. We begin with ourselves, but the goal is to change the entire humanity. But how can we change the entire humanity if we don’t change our own world first? Of course, it’s not easy to separate, because in reality we have to do both at the same time.

Then let’s make a difference in this world. By adopting the Five Agreements, we create peace in our head, in our own world, and thereby help to create peace in the entire world. How long will it take for the entire world to change? Two, or three, or four generations? The truth is that we don’t care how long it will take. We are not in a hurry, but we have no time to lose. Help me to change the world.

___________________

Excerpted and adapted from The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery by don Miguel Ruiz and don Jose Ruiz with Janet Mills
Published by Amber-Allen Publishing / Pub Date: January, 2010

© Miguel Angel Ruiz, M.D., Jose Luis Ruiz, and Janet Mills. Reprinted by Permission of Amber-Allen Publishing, Inc., San Rafael, California