Editor's note: For 12 columns during 12 weeks, Richard Eyre has outlined and defined “The Three Deceivers” of Control, Ownership, and Independence, and detailed how our obsessions with them can ruin the quality of our lives. Two weeks ago, we began the second phase of the column, with the new name “The Three Alternatives” and the attitude of Control was replaced with the approach of SERENDIPITY. (Click here to review that column. Then last week, the paradigm of Ownership was replaced with Stewardship. (Click here to review that one.) Today's column outlines the alternative to Independence. In future weeks (always on Fridays and staying posted on the front page through the weekend) Richard will elaborate on why he believes these are better and more spiritual alternatives than each of the three deceivers and in doing so will open to you a new world of thinking that may change how you live. He continues to welcome your feedback and suggestions. Write to him at mailto:Richard@meridianmagazine.com. If you missed any of the earlier columns in this series, you can go to the Deceivers Archive (see right sidebar) and catch up.

Finding a Word-Label for the Alternative to Independence

This was the toughest of the three Alternatives to put into one word, particularly an 11-letter "S" word. But where there is a will, there is a way, and it turns out that this Third Alternative is the perfect complement to the other two. It is an attitude that not only pulls us out of the deceptive and negative clutches of the false concept of Independence, it also complements (and attracts) serendipity and stewardship!

But it required the coining of a new word, and that word is SYNERGICITY. As you may recognize, it is a combination of two other words, synergy and synchronicity. Let me explain:

Synergy is an important (and currently quite popular word) meaning the combination of two or more people, points of view, or approaches where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one can equal three, two plus two can equal five ? or more. When two people or things complement each other, or motivate each other in certain ways, the combined result can be much greater than the aggregate of what each could do separately. The word actually comes from the Greek synergos, meaning working together and is defined in the dictionary as:

• A mutually advantageous conjunction where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
• A dynamic state in which combined action is favored over the sum of individual component actions.

The word synergy is used a lot in business of course, but its best use is probably in human relationships, particularly in marriage. A husband and wife, working together with complementing skills and perspectives, should produce a synergistic marriage that accomplishes much more than the total of what the two individuals could do on their own. (By the way, synergistic was a good candidate for the 11-letter S word to replace the deceiver Independence, but it was a modifying adjective rather than a noun/title/attitude/paradigm like the other two alternatives, and it lacked something. What it lacked was the amazing, cosmic, perfect-timing quality where things fit magically together because of the Spirit's influence.

It lacked the quality of synchronicity.

Synchronicity is a term made up by Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist known for his exploration of the subconscious mind. He used the word to describe what he called "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung variously described synchronicity as an "'acausal connecting principle'" (i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality — or a "meaningful coincidence") and "acausal parallelism". It differs from mere coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic expressed through meaningful relationships or events. A little confusing, I admit, but you get the idea.

The best dictionary definition I have found is this: Synchronicity is "the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality."

Jung didn't get the spiritual connections, of course, or realize that there are outside-the-mind causes for these things that seem to go beyond coincidence. Nevertheless, his word is fascinating because it begins to give us a way to talk about those amazing times when everything just seems to converge — where the whole universe seems to plot together and coalesce for our happiness. It suggests the interconnectedness of the micro and the macro, like the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil and affecting the climate in New York City. Or the thought-and reality connections like someone calling you just at the moment when you were thinking of him.

When you add the spiritual connections, it becomes a way to talk about the amazing timing of God's tender mercies in our lives and the connections between the thoughts and feelings of loved ones that can't be explained in cause and effect terms. It teaches us that "coincidence" is a word we use when we don't notice Gods hand in things. And when you link spiritual synchronicity with spiritual synergy, you get our new word, synergicity.

New Word, New Definition

Synergicity is the attitude and paradigm alternative to Independence. Instead of saying that we can stand alone, it says that we are completely dependent on God. Instead of implying that we don't need others, it suggests that we are all interdependent, and that people working together can accomplish much more than the total of what everyone could do individually.

Instead of exclusive focus on individualism, synergicity focuses on family, on friends, on communities, and on connecting everything to God. Instead of looking for ways to do better than others, it aims at ways of doing better with others. Instead of striving to do things in spite of the circumstances around us, it prompts us to do things within and in harmony with the circumstances around us. And instead of the goal of lifting ourselves by our bootstraps to the objectives we have set, it teaches us to let God lift us to the foreordinations He has given us.

Synergicity is a lens through which we try to view the world a little like God sees it — with everything interconnected, everything benefiting from everything else, and in one way or another depending on everything else. (Symbiotic is another nice S word, by the way, meaning "any interdependent or mutually beneficial relationship between two persons, groups, etc." It could also have been a candidate for the Alternative, though it only has nine letters)

Synergicity then, the third of the Three Alternatives, really is a combination of the words synergy, synchronicity, and symbiotic, and it can be defined as a paradigm in which we acknowledge divine dependence, mutual interdependence, and respect the interconnectedness of all things, times, and occurrences within the framework of God's plan.

The Big Picture

With an attitude of synergicity, we believe that things happen for a reason, and that everything happens within God's broader plan ? that no matter how things look to us, "God is in his Heaven and all is well with the world." We have faith that things that look unfair, or unfortunate, or unfavorable to what we think is good, are, in the bigger perspective that God sees, unfolding just the way He intends. On a more personal level, we learn that, as D&C 90:24 teaches, all things will work together for our good, if we walk uprightly, remember our covenants, search diligently, be believing, and pray always.

Synergicity has a great deal to do with trying to see things more and more the way God sees them, and with believing in His view of things even when we can't see it.

Someone might enter a stadium in the middle of a race, observe runners on a track, and conclude that the race is unfair, because some are ahead of others. The problem is, he didn't see the start of the race, and he can't yet see the finish. God, of course, sees both. We don't remember our pre-mortal existence, but we have faith that it is there, in our past, and that it has bearing on our present just as our life now has bearing on our future eternity. And we trust He who made up the rules for the race.

Or try another image: Imagine an Australian Aborigine, leaving his primitive tribe to go on walk-about for several months and happening to come back just in time to see a white medical missionary about to perform an appendectomy on his wife. The poor Aborigine would draw all the wrong conclusions ? that the man was trying to hurt his wife, that it was against her will, and that it could not possibly do her any good.
With our limited perspective, we tend to draw wrong conclusions too, about what is happening, unless we override them with faith in God, in His purposes, in His perspective, and in His plan.

Implementation

The key to implementing an attitude of Synergicity is to understand that, while our perspective and grasp of reality is narrow and limited by our mortality and by the veil, we have three incredible tools at our disposal, each of which can open things up to us and give us a much broader view of reality and of God's will. (And, in doing so, can show us the connections, opportunities, and insights that will allow us to learn the lessons, do the work, and find the joy that God has put us here for.) The tools can open up to us enormous resources and capacities beyond what we have independently and consciously.

The tools that we have, that our spirits can use, are:

1. Our own brains. We use less than 10% of the capacity of our marvelous minds. The power of our subconscious is largely untapped. We can "program" our brains to show us connections, to notice subtle things, to put the right words into our mouth, or give the complement that someone else needs. We can literally tell our minds to be more aware, to prompt us to call someone when they are available, or to remember things from past experience that are relevant to what we are doing at the moment.

2. Other people's consciousness. When we ask other people how they feel, how they see things, what their take is, it's like getting a whole new picture with a whole new camera angle. When we develop our sense of empathy, we can sometimes get these perspectives without even asking. The point is that there is so much awareness and perspective around us, in the form of other people with their own sets of experiences and viewpoints, and the more we tap into that, the more our own awareness and perspective expands.

3. The Holy Ghost. The third member of the Godhead has the complete grasp of all reality, and we have the right to His companionship and benefit from His vast and beautiful comprehension. This connection is a gift, but only we can open it.

Think of these three resources in a technology metaphor. Our brains are our laptop computers (let's call them our head-top computers). They have far more capacity and memory and connections than we normally use.

Other people's experience and insights and perspectives are like a computer network or even the internet. By plugging in and tapping in, we dramatically expand our own computer's speed, memory, and capacity.

And the Holy Ghost is, of course, the mainframe computer, the unlimited database and endless capacity master computer to which we have access. And it never breaks down or goes off line and cannot supply any false or misleading information, only truth and light.

Surrendering to Dependence and Interdependence

We will get much deeper into the implementation of Synergicity in later columns, but the main thing to understand for now, is that life is not about independence, but about interdependence with each other and dependence on God.

Yes, mortality is the stage of progression where we are given agency and are separated from Heavenly Father, but we should use that agency not to try to become independent from Him, but to bind ourselves to him by choosing His way and seeking His will.

And yes, this world affords us the opportunity to try to stand alone and do everything for ourselves and strive not to need others, but we should turn those opportunities completely around and instead serve others, let them serve us, become good givers and good receivers, and depend on family and friends even as we invite them to depend on us.

In doing so, we open ourselves up to God and to others. We admit our vulnerability and our weakness and our need. We acknowledge our own nothingness and the "everythingness" of God.

Contrasting the Deceiver with its Alternative

As we did with the other two Alternatives of Serendipity and Stewardship, let's compare, on the same three criteria, Synergicity with the Deceiver it replaces. Those criteria, or three points of comparison that we presented earlier, were:

1. Truth: That they are true paradigms, completely valid and sound, while the deceivers build on half truths to conclusions that are ultimately false.
2. Motivation: That they are more inspiring and that they stimulate more action and initiative than the deceivers.
3. Results: That they produce not only better results, but more results in our everyday lives than do the deceivers.

Truth: Independence is not reality. As hard as we might try to convince ourselves that we are independent, we are actually completely dependent on God, even for every breath we take, and interdependent on so many people. Synergicity recognizes this, and turns it into a magnificent blessing.

Motivation: The self-centering notion of trying to do everything ourselves, to stand alone, to depend only on self, is a stubborn and defensive kind of motivation, likely to burn out and turn brittle. The motivation of synergicity reaches out, and has the excitement of lifting others as it lifts us, and the adventure of trying to fit the pieces of God's puzzle together.

Results: Independence, doing things with only our own capacity and our narrow perspective, has the potential of only very limited results, and often negative results. Synergicity, and finding the connections God wants us to discover, makes our results part of His, and all limits are off.

Upcoming: Help Me Put It Together

Over the next few columns, we will explore the connections between the Three Alternatives of Serendipity, Stewardship, and Synergicity, and the ways that they support and stimulate each other. More importantly, we will explore how they can become great mental, attitudinal frameworks in which true Gospel principles (like Faith, Hope and Charity) can flourish and be beautifully practiced.

Then, later in this every-Friday column, we will spend a full month (four columns) on each of the three Alternatives, outlining specific ways in which each can be implemented in our lives and become a permanent part of our attitudes and a consistent and reliable paradigm through which we view our selves, our families, and our mortal lives.

Your feedback is an indispensable and invaluable part of this process. As you read the columns, send me the thoughts, insights, and questions that come to your mind. Help me write this column. Let's make it an interactive Gospel discussion rather than a speech. Let me be a discussion leader rather than a preacher. After all, we are all interdependent!

What do you think of the Three Alternatives? Do they preserve all of the good aspects of Control (initiative, discipline, responsibility and so on) but eliminate all of the negative aspects (judgment, jealousy, conceit, presumption, envy, covetousness, frustration and other deceiving and damaging qualities)? Does a serendipitous perspective help us to see “things as they really are” — Does a stewardship "trunk" grow good and righteous branches? Does an attitude of "synergicity" open us to inspiration and personal revelation? Upcoming columns will explore each of the Three Alternatives individually and in much greater depth. All through the process, Richard will continue to appreciate your input at Richard@meridianmagazine.com.

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