I center in this paper on personal experiences throughout my life. They include what happened to me in my early years, the times when I entered college, when I obtained advanced degrees and taught sociology, and the years after I retired from teaching. At the same time, I have charted here a lifetime of moving in a developmental or evolutionary direction, granting that I—like the rest of us—have been prey to many setbacks. What I’ve emerged with and have emphasized here is what I call “the East-West strategy” for solving personal and world problems. It combines ideas from ancient times with contemporary knowledge. It is based on one’s making a most difficult transition: movement from a way of life emphasizing hierarchy, narrow specialization and personal conformity to a pattern of behavior stressing democratic equality, interdisciplinary knowledge and personal autonomy and development. Based on such knowledge, I’m convinced that ever more of us can accomplish this transition. Further, I believe that fundamental problems throughout the world—such as climate change and the possibility of World War III as the result of accident or design—call for the rapid development of humanity to avert disaster. I see the East-West strategy as a powerful tool that any and all of us can and should use in these perilous times to move toward solving personal and world problems.