Day 131: Jeff Schweitzer

February 8, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Featured, Inspiration

“I have a list of 20 tenets that I have posted that I try to use to guide me in my daily living. … Be honest, be reliable, be responsible, be faithful, respect and be tolerant of others; those kinds of things.  I have 20 of those that I have posted that I look at every day, and I look to those tenets of responsible, moral behavior for my own guidance and my own effort to … reach my own potential.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Jeff, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we get into your interview, can you please introduce yourself?

Jeff Schweitzer: Thank you for having me, Toni.  My name is Jeff Schweitzer, and I’m formerly the Assistant Director for International Science and Technology at the White House during the Clinton Administration, and then also the Chief Environmental Officer at the Agency for International Development, and currently I spend my time writing and lecturing.

Toni: Well thank you for such a grand introduction.  You’ve got a lot of experience under your belt.  When you think of that word inspiration, Jeff, who do you think you inspire and how you do that?

Jeff: I hope to inspire every single person who is searching for answers to life’s most perplexing questions without appealing to God or any higher power but, instead, by seeking the good that was in all of us.  I really hope to inspire the 40 million Americans who do not believe in God or who question their religion or who are somehow unsatisfied with the answers provided by their religion.

Toni: Okay.  How do you go about that?

Jeff: Multiple ways.  The most important and most recent is through a book that I’ve recently published and also through blogging and giving lectures across the country.  My goal is to reach as many people as I can with this idea.  My goal is to present the idea — not to change anybody’s mind — but to allow them to absorb what I’m saying and assimilate it or not into their lives as appropriate to their own individual lives.

Toni: Now, through the inspiration and the message that you’re getting out there, the book that you’ve written, what is the message, and how does that then help someone explore their own potential?

Jeff: Well, I believe that religion offers a false and dangerous morality by bribing people into good behavior with either threats of eternal damnation or alluring promises of eternal bliss, and I think that our inherent good has been corrupted by those divine … what I call divine carrots on sticks.

And so, I inspire people by trying to allow them to look at the world in a completely different way by paving their own road to a better life, creating their own meaning and purpose in life, and becoming masters of their own fate, taking full responsibility of all their actions independent of any mysterious man in the sky working in unknown ways.  So I try to inspire people by giving them a different world view.

Toni: How do people come to you?  Do you do coaching with them?  Do you talk to them?   I mean, how does someone come to you that may need to hear this or want to hear this?

Jeff: I have been giving a series of lectures across the country to, fortunately and gratefully, enthusiastic audiences.  There is apparently a very large gap that needs to be filled with people that don’t want to abandon spirituality but are unhappy with structured religion.  And so I communicate with those people through various media including in-person lectures at various venues across the country, plus the book, plus the blog.  So there’s a variety of ways that people come to me and I go to them.

Toni: So if I’m hearing you correctly, then the way that you inspire and help people explore their potential is to put the ownership on themselves first to manage their own fate rather than some cosmic or a religion so to speak.

Jeff: That’s partly true, yes.  But before you can get to the point where you can really create your own meaning and purpose in life, where you can get to the point in your life where that statement has true meaning and you can adopt it and act on it and actually take the actions that allow you to take full responsibility for your actions and become master of your own fate, before you can get to that point, you have to understand why you’re not there now, and that requires a fairly in-depth analysis and discussion about how religion has affected our thinking about who we are, our relationship with each other, our relationship with the environment and other animals, and how that might need to be changed to really embrace your own responsibility to create your own meaning and purpose in life.

Toni: I would imagine that lends itself to a rather robust conversation in some circles.

Jeff: It does.  But funny enough, I’ve had ministers, priests, and rabbis in the audience of many of my presentations, and I do not have an anti-religious message.  And so when I get done speaking, some of the most interesting and intriguing questions and friendly questions I get are from religious leaders, because I’m not saying that I’m right or that they’re wrong.

I’m saying there is a different way to look at the world, and if the current way you’re looking at the world includes religion and that makes you unhappy, there is another way to look at it that can also lead to great, deep, and really a deep happiness and a very fulfilling life.  I’m not out to disparage religion.  I’m out to create an alternative view should that be something someone needs.

Toni: I think that was an incredibly important clarification point to make, so I really, really appreciate that, that you’re not talking about the anti-religion, you’re talking about alternative ways and options that people have to forge their own way.

Jeff: Absolutely.  I mean, it’s clear from the audiences — the response that I get and the enthusiasm that I see — that religion has come to a point in our lives that it seems inadequate to many people.  They’re looking for something else that they don’t feel that religion is providing them with the fulfillment and the answers that they need.  And I say “Well, that’s interesting, because if that’s true for you and you are looking for something other than religion to answer those questions, I have something that you might be interested in.”

If someone is fully satisfied with what they have now and they’re not seeking alternative means of understanding their lives and life, then I really don’t have anything interesting to say to them.  They don’t need to hear what I have to say.

Toni: It sounds like it’s really taking the excuses away from some.

Jeff: That’s a really great way of putting it.  And that also, by the way, what you’ve just said, syncs nicely with my goal of getting people to understand that they are fully responsible for all their actions, everything that they do and all the consequences of their actions.  You can’t foist it off upon some higher power or fate or the fickleness of the unknown.  You can take responsibility for the quality of your life and where you’re taking your own life.

Toni: Fantastic.  Now, let me ask you – what do you need to be inspired?

Jeff: Honesty, to me, is the first and most essential ingredient to exploring your own potential, and honesty with yourself is first and foremost, and then that allows you to be honest with all those around you.  And I think that based on that fundamental foundation of truth, I can really put myself in a position to explore both my own weaknesses honestly and my own strengths, and then therefore, with that honest evaluation, work on those weaknesses and enhance those strengths.

I think honesty is absolutely essential in all things, in all interactions, and that’s how … that’s what I need to explore my own potential is honesty.  I think it’s fundamental, and I think it’s often missing in human communication.

Toni: Well let me back up just a second then.  If honesty is what you use and what you absolutely need to explore your potential, before you … or simultaneous to this, what inspires you about that?  What inspires you?  What do you need to be inspired in order to explore that potential within yourself?

Jeff: This is a very odd answer to that question, but it’s the most honest one that I can provide.  I don’t need external inspiration.  I look inside for inspiration, and I am inspired by my own desire to be good and my own desire to live a good, moral life.  That is sufficient inspiration for me.  I really don’t need to look outside of who I am for that inspiration, and that sounds at first very introspective and selfish, but it’s actually the opposite of that.

What I’m trying to say by that is that we, each of us as individuals, have within us … each of us have within ourselves the ability to know what is right and wrong and how to act on those … how to act on that knowledge of right and wrong, and it’s … we need to look inside and not look for external validation to understand what those values really are.  Does that make sense?

Toni: It does, it does.  It depends also on how you define inspiration.  But from your perspective, which is really the most important perspective at this moment, you’re not looking outward; you’re looking inward for inspiration.

Jeff: Absolutely, absolutely.

Toni: Are there tools or methods that you find yourself maybe reaching for that might help you with that internal reflection, to stay on the path that you want to stay on?

Jeff: Yes; through study.  The more I understand about the natural and physical world, the more I understand how I properly fit into it.  And so it’s a constant effort to improve my knowledge, and that’s a lifelong, never-ending journey.  And through that journey and through a constant effort to learn, I really believe I can better understand the false premises that I have and other people have based much of their life on and getting closer to … never probably ever actually achieving, but getting closer to a more fundamental truth about what our morality is.

Morality, I believe, is our biological destiny, and the more I understand about our biology and our history and our evolution, the more I can understand about how our past affects our present and how we can look to our biology for inspiration for our morality.

Toni: Were you always … were you predisposed to think this way?  Have you always thought about life this way?  With the work that you’ve done and the experience, the great experiences that you’ve had, have you always shown up this way?

Jeff: I believe so.  From my earliest memories, I’ve always rejected the notion of a higher power even as a very, very young child.  I didn’t reject it for any reason out of … I had a wonderful childhood, loving parents, a great warm family.  I have had very little trauma in my life, fortunately, and so there was no precipitating event that would make me question a higher power; I just never thought it made sense.

From the earliest time, I was a thinking person.  The idea of a higher power just never resonated with me.  It didn’t make any internal sense to me.  And in the absence of that, I looked elsewhere to understand life like all people do, and I looked to science and reason rather than faith to try to understand what my life was about and what the world was about.

Toni: So let’s go back now to the final question of potential, which is exploring your own potential, which you said as long as you are honest with yourself and stay with the truth, that is the most important thing that you can do to explore your own potential.  Are there other ways that compliment that truth to help you explore your potential?

Jeff: I believe there are.  I have a list of 20 tenets that I have posted that I try to use to guide me in my daily living.  And I think by trying to be faithful to these 20 tenets, I am better positioned to really explore my own potential; not only explore my own potential, but to maximize my potential most efficiently.  I’m not going to … I’m sure you don’t want all 20, but I’ll just give you a smattering of the kind of things I mean.

Be honest, be reliable, be responsible, be faithful, respect and be tolerant of others; those kinds of things.  I have 20 of those that I have posted that I look at every day, and I look to those tenets of responsible, moral behavior for my own guidance and my own effort to improve my … and reach my own potential.

Toni: Now, the road that you’re on with this experience and this lifelong learning of science and research, how does that then translate into what you’re doing currently for your profession?

Jeff: Well, very much directly, because I am now dedicated and motivated to talking to people about this idea of an alternative view to religion — again, not anti-religion, but a different way of looking at the world — and so I am spending all of my time now writing and lecturing based on this idea.

Toni: Well, I’ll tell you, Jeff, you have really given a very thought-provoking interview, and there could be some questions that come out of this, really good and important questions.  So we will, as we always do, post how people can reach you at the bottom of your interview.  And for this snapshot of an alternative way of thinking has been incredibly impressive, and I thank you so very much for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.

Jeff: Well thank you for having me, Toni.  It’s been delightful.  I wish you the best of luck with the Project.  It’s a great journey you’re on.

Toni: Thank you.  Thank you very much, and I’m happy that you were part of it.  Take care of yourself.

Jeff: Thank you.

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For more information about Jeff Schweitzer:  www.JeffSchweitzer.com

Book: “Beyond Cosmic Dice: Moral Life in a Random World“

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