Determinant: One choice will change everything

Afterword (Author's Note)

Manifesto of the Kaizen Faction

The Art of Continuous Self-Improvement

We believe that human beings are by nature flawed but that we should never simply accept that as the best we can do. Instead, we must continuously strive to improve ourselves.

We believe it is not enough to simply be brave or smart or selfless or honest or kind. We must attempt to be all of these, and more.

We believe we must fight injustices whenever we see them, in order to continuously improve the society in which we live.

We believe we should never be limited by one view of the world but should always seek to embrace other perspectives and to learn throughout our lives.

We believe that we grow by building and doing and teaching, not merely by thinking and reflecting, although those are also part of growth.

We believe in recovery – in the capacity of an individual to grow and heal and become a better and more complete person.

We believe in accepting the best lessons from others and applying those to our lives while also continuing to pursue new ideas.

We believe in the power of forgiveness to help both the person who was wronged and the person who did the wrong.

We believe in helping others to improve, by supporting and nurturing but also by challenging when appropriate, because often the easiest path is not the right one.

We believe in growth as an individual and as a faction and as a society and as a country and as a world. We should never be content to be less than we can be.

---------------------------------------------------

A/N:

That's the end of my story. If you haven't reviewed yet, please take a moment to do that. Reviews mean a great deal to me - they help me improve my writing and always make my day, and I truly appreciate each and every one of them. If you've already reviewed/voted/followed while reading, THANK YOU!

Thank you also to my wonderful beta reader, Rosalie, for always giving me helpful feedback with a super-fast turnaround time; it would have been much harder to write this without you!

Some final notes:

1. Please check out my other stories. I have a bunch of other "Determinant" related fics.

2. If you want to discuss this story or have any questions about it, you can reach me through my tumblr account at http windchimedwriter tumblr com (add punctuation - sorry, but this site strips urls and email addresses, so I can't post the real link).

3. For those who would like to print this story out or want to send it to an older-style Kindle, I do have a Word copy available that I'd be happy to send to you. If you'd like that, please email me at windchimedwriter gmail com (add punctuation in the obvious places, since as I mentioned above, this site strips real email addresses).

Thanks again for everything! You've been a wonderful group of people to write a story with, and I feel very lucky to have you as readers.

– Windchimed

P.S. Kaizen is a real philosophy that's often used within martial arts. I couldn't find an old English word that meant the same thing (continuous self-improvement), but this one seemed appropriate since three out of the four original founders of the faction were martial arts experts. :-)