The Three Stories of Our Time

Whichever way it goes, my work is the same. My work is to quiet my mind and open my heart and relieve suffering wherever I find it. - Ram Dass

The three stories of our time is a foundational teaching of Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects. It describes three concurrent narratives unfolding in our world that shape the backdrop of our lives. This framework has provided me with a valuable orientation for making sense of and responding to our current reality.

The first narrative is Business as Usual. This is the story of our modern lifestyle with its comforts and conveniences, and all the technological and economic developments that have made many aspects of our lives easier and safer.

In this story, nature is viewed primarily as a commodity to be used for human purposes. Consumption and economic growth is seen as essential, success is measured by getting ahead, corporate profits, and financial gain. This paradigm has dominated our economic, political, and social systems for generations.

The second narrative is The Great Unraveling. This is what we are witnessing accelerate before our eyes—the collapse of systems and structures that were actually unsustainable from their inception.

Economic instability, climate disruption, mass extinction of species, social inequality, and political polarization are all aspects of this unraveling. The societal and economic structures that seemed so permanent are revealing their fragility.

Both of these stories are unfolding simultaneously. But there is a third story underway as well, The Great Turning. This is the transition toward a life-sustaining society committed to the recovery of our world.

The Great Turning is being created by millions of people around the world taking actions on behalf of life on Earth, building regenerative, sustainable systems and ways of living that are grounded in the reality of our interconnectedness. It encompasses everything from renewable energy initiatives and regenerative agriculture to social justice movements and community resilience projects.

While it is true that we are living in a time of accelerated collapse, it is also true is that the future is not yet written. We can’t know how each of these stories will play out. This fundamental uncertainty is part of what it means to be alive at this time. What we can know, however, is which story we choose to align with and devote our efforts toward.

This is where our yoga practice becomes essential. I’ll write more next week about the relationship between yoga and the Great Turning, but here’s a starting point: through our practice, we can become more of who we wish to be in the world at this pivotal moment—regardless of how the future unfolds. To me, this is the work of the yogi in 2025: to fortify ourselves physically, mentally, and spiritually in order to contribute to the future we envision.

The attributes we cultivate through a yoga practice rooted in principles such as ahimsa (non-harming), satya (truthfulness), and karuna (compassion), can energize, nurture, and inspire our contributions to the Great Turning.

As Ram Dass reminds us, our work remains the same regardless of what’s happening around us: to quiet our minds, open our hearts, and relieve suffering wherever possible. By doing so, we become more powerful agents of the Great Turning, embodying the very world we wish to create.