The Pursuit of Happiness Project:

Finally, this project recognizes that the occasion of America turning 250 is the perfect time to launch this project. A large percentage of the population knows “we’ve got trouble”. But they either don’t feel there’s anything they can do (resulting in depression) or think the solution is to “fight fire with fire” (which just continues the “violence is the answer” solution mindset). Offering a breakthrough solution to this crisis ... one based on systems thinking, root cause analysis, and emotional maturity principles ... is a perfect fit for a year when people are reflecting on where we’ve been, where we are, and where we dream of going.

In the words of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, this project will go beyond offering its customers what they already think is possible (customer satisfaction) to offering them what they don’t know they can have because they’ve never experienced it before (customer delight). And it will recognize that a kind of customer delight was recently experienced by those Americans who witnessed The Walk For Peace from Texas to Washington DC earlier this year.

This project will offer a methodology that doesn’t just stop this downward spiral but creates a mental health-based, transformational cultural leap forward that eliminate the root cause of why people resort to violence against others. It will do this in part by helping people see that - in shifting their mindset from “I live in a you or me, scarcity-based world” to “I can live in a you and me, abundance-based world” - they can finally fully embrace the spiritual principle embodied in the expression “love thy neighbor”. They will also feel free to embrace the spiritual principle already understood by Native Americans and other indigenous peoples: “We are all connected to (not separate from) Mother Nature”.

One way of seeing this transformational leap forward is through the analogy of “getting a divorce to end any involvement with an abusive spouse”. Using that analogy, this project will work to bring like-minded people (people who desire a future where there is “more peace and less war”) together into local Peace City networks... much as how support networks exist to help people who seek to get out of abusive relationships create better, new lives... for the purpose of co-creating the kind of society they want. By including the development of The American Standard and “Inspiring Conversations” (modeled after The Oklahoma Standard and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum’s “Better Conversations”) these Peace Cities will take the community development model developed by Dr. W. Edwards Deming and his colleagues to the level identified in Dr. Deming’s final book, “The New Economics”. In that book, he advocated for advancing the application of his cooperation and continuous learning and improvement philosophy beyond individual companies to entire communities, entire States, entire Nations, and beyond: ultimately realizing the dream of the United Nations of a world beyond war. While the UN was not designed based on the systems thinking problem solving mindset Dr. Deming used, its dream can still be achieved by other means.