With all the attention paid to the blood and gore of daily life, it’s easy to see why it’s hard to be optimistic about our future. The simple reason is that it is hard to see beyond what we are all experiencing, what we are seeing, what we are constantly being bombarded with.
In the distant past, say 100 years ago or so, it was relatively easy to live without being threatened to be pulled under by the treacherous rapids of current events. A significant percentage of our population (perhaps even a majority) lived a rural lifestyle, possibly without electricity and probably without daily newspapers laid on our porches. For most of us, unless we were relatively affluent, we had to work hard to even know the headlines about the events our our local region, of our country, of our world. Our general vision of the future was lots of drudgery but with the hope that some semi-magical force, like electricity or internal-combustion engines, would relieve us of years of hard labor.
In the far distant past, say 250 years ago, it was really hard to learn more than gossip about current events. Our vision of the future was limited to the rumors and fears of our equally innocent members of our class. We were all serving out life-sentences of hard labor with only the barest hopes that we could someday achieve some conveniences to make our lives better, such as adding a second chair or a adding a second room for the children (all 5 or 10 of them). Only the upper 2-3% of society had any education at all and these lucky few were more likely to be familiar with the issues of ancient Greece than the current plight of the common man.
But in today’s world, it’s hard to escape the 24-hour a day news cycle, filled with worst and most horrific events from around the world. The news organizations are trained to obey rule of “If it bleeds, it leads” and bloggers and podcasters are trained to distill from these lurid headlines the most outrageous conclusions that support their own personal biases (or the biases that they are paid to (mis)represent).
If we want our futures to be better than our bleak todays, we must intentionally separate what we want from the constant barrage of negativity. Our shared future CAN be better but not if we just let our future happen. We must begin to develop, design, dream, and dedicate ourselves to producing a better future, not just for ourselves, but for our children and our grandchildren. Once we share a general vision of our future, we can start to make the tweaks and adjustments needed to bring that future into sharper focus until that vision becomes a reality.
“Intentionally separating” sounds easy but it requires practice and a bit of emotionally distancing ourselves from current events. When the next horrific sound bite or disgusting video clip is broadcast, intentionally decide if you do or do not want this event in your future. Don’t get swept up in the emotion of that clip; emotional people can make bad decisions, like buying the next bit of junk advertised to help us feel better.
Instead, try to be a little analytical and ask yourself, “Why do I want this in our future? or why don’t I want this in our future? Do I want my children to watch this? Do I want my grandchildren to have to listen to this?” This self-questioning is what helps to lead us to the general outlines of our future. It can tell us about our core values, what we believe is important, what our hearts tell us are the true enduring values.
Once we have a better vision of what we want in our shared future, we cannot expect every group to just roll over and accept OUR vision and discard THEIR vision. It is reasonable to assume that there will be significant push back against a new vision of the future, especially if those voicing the objections are receiving significant benefits of the current vision. As a silly example, if our vision of the future was one without potatoes, we could expect strong and passionate push back from the Potato Growers Association, the Young Potato Fellowship Group, and french fry lovers around the world. And that’s as it should be: the objectors provide opportunities for us to expand and improve our future vision.
If you are reading this post, then you are part of the first few generations where our future in NOT predetermined based on our past. We have the opportunity and the obligation to decide what that bright and shiny future looks like and not just accept the future imposed upon us. We can craft a better future but we first have to have a shared vision of what that better future looks like.
A thousand generations have placed their faith in us to produce a better future. They worked hard to survive and did their best to teach their children what they would need to survive, based on what they knew, based on the dirt under their fingernails and the gnawing hunger in their stomachs. And in their hearts.
Take a look at the next post(s) to view my visions for our future.
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