John Renesch: Exploring the Better Future

A Potentially Fatal Fallacy

You’ve heard of the “fatal flaw,” sometimes called the “tragic flaw?” It is the one thing people either ignored or forgot about when they set about to achieve something and failed. It is what the forensics people might determine as the primary “cause of death” of the ideal, the project, whatever. Aristotle might have called it hamartia which could connote a failure of morals, or character, or hubris. YourDictionary.com defines this flaw “as pride, in the character of the protagonist of a tragedy… leads to that protagonist's downfall.”

Fallacy on the other hand is “aptness to mislead…deceptive or delusive quality” as in “the fallacy of the senses.” It is a false or mistaken idea or opinion. YourDictionary.com defines is as “an error in reasoning; flaw or defect in argument; an argument which does not conform to the rules of logic, esp. one that appears to be sound.”

Now this seems so befitting to the paradigm of thought so widespread in our Western industrialized society, the misleading “fallacy of the senses” that tells us we are separate from one another, Nature’s resources are unlimited and conflict can be resolved with exacerbation rather than reconciliation. When we start examining this fallacy, it no longer becomes an interesting study of a fallen emperor’s chink, a Waterloo-like decision that brought an end to a regime or even a product launch that ruined a corporation. A fallacious worldview today can lead to extinctions like it does in Nature and collapses like what occurred to regionally isolated societies of the past. 

There’s no such thing as “regionally isolated societies” any more, at least not any modern societies. It might be argued if Western society’s current worldview continues to serve as its basis for relating with one another, continues to “not conform to the rules of logic, especially one that appears to be sound,” who’s “false and mistaken idea or opinion” continues to go unchallenged, a social collapse of unprecedented proportions could result. This would be the fatal fallacy of thought, the flawed thinking that was left unchecked until the evidence was so overwhelming it was too late to do anything but cry.

What do we tell our children? Our grandchildren? Their children? “Sorry, kids, we were too busy to notice.” Or, “Oops, I hope your generation does better than we did.” Well, guess what? Those conversations are already happening! Did you catch the 12 year old girl admonishing a large conference in South America last year on TV? Have you heard of thousands of conversations between parents and their teenage children at dinner tables everywhere? Thank God some of these young men and women possess enough awareness to start thinking differently, at least about environmental matters.

It would be different if changing mindsets were a very expensive proposition. Unlike many of the world’s problems, this challenge is not financial. All it takes is a willingness to think differently, to venture into inquiries that could challenge our beliefs, challenge our assumptions, push against our stubborn attachments to the way things have to be. The price for this change is not monetary. It is not material. It is largely a matter of ego.

Why do we continue living and working within an outmoded paradigm when it has been demonstrated how outmoded our exiting paradigms of thought really are? What a mistake it is to continue operating from their premises. Unimaginable possibilities await us if we dare to embrace new paradigms. So why do we persist in this fallacious thinking? If you answer “because we don’t know any better” that would be a lie given we’ve had people telling us this for almost a century so we could “know better” if we were interested in learning anything.

If your answer is “because we’re set in our ways” then shame on us for continuing a practice knowing it could be leading us to extinction. Sounds completely stupid? So does smoking cigarettes when you know if isn’t good for you. What about “it is too hard”? If this has any merit we must admit to being so addicted to the way we think we won’t consider changing even when it appears life-threatening. Like the alcoholic who often wants to stop and can’t, this third explanation may be the most valid. If this is so, then I propose, we tell it like it is and admit it!

We are left with the truth: we’re simply hooked on our way of thinking and either aren’t willing or don’t want to change. If this is the end game for humanity then at least we can go out in a blaze of glory like Butch and Sundance. Doesn’t sound particularly mature to me but, hey…. Party! Party! Party!

Are We Zombies Or Just Sleepwalking?

I had the pleasure to host social activist and environmentalist Van Jones as my guest yesterday for the Howard Thurman Forum Series. The format is similar to “Inside Actors Studio” which airs on the Bravo TV Network in which host James Lipton interviews a well-known actor with an audience of students at New York’s Actors Studio.

A sizable group of young people, mostly students, were in the audience to hear Van. Their presence definitely influenced the tone of the interview and the comments which followed. By the end of the Forum, it was fairly clear to most of us that we have been a disengaged citizenry for a couple of generations and that for any meaningful change to occur in the U.S., the new generation has to get more involved in the political process. Left to the people in Washington, even with the anticipated changes in the White House with the upcoming elections, things will only get worse. The systems is broken and no heroic figure is going to make much difference unless the system changes. It is also clear where this scale of change is going to come from: we the people.

We the people have abdicated our responsibility as citizens. Our forefathers and mothers made great sacrifices to create a country that could function effectively with checks and balances to maintain order and freedom. Many made huge sacrifices for their country. Nowadays, if we vote every few years we consider ourselves good citizens (the half of us who do vote). The rest is rhetoric – discussing candidates or issues along the way toward voting. Very few of us do any service for the nation such as Peace Corps or the military or even connecting with our elected officials. Most of us are disengaged, busying ourselves with relatively trivial matters like television reality shows, tabloid TV or radio, and fascination with our technologies. Regarding engaged citizenship we have essentially quit. We act as if we are asleep, impervious to the fact that we have the governments we deserve.

Van helped us see yesterday that many of us have been sleepwalking through our lives when it comes to our role as citizens in a democracy. He made an excellent point for the benefit of the younger audience members that they have a sacred responsibility to engage in the politics if anything new is going to occur, no matters who is elected to the White House in November.

The question we have to ask ourselves: can we wake up? Are we merely somnambulating (sleepwalking) or has something died inside us making us zombies, the “living dead” who are beyond recessitating?

These are questions we of the older generations need to ask ourselves now, while there is still hope for real change to occur with the upcoming elections. As Van so eloquently pointed our yesterday, any new President will fail at making real changes without an engaged electorate standing behind them – an electorate determined to fix the system, reform the way politics is done, even reinventing government if that is what it takes.

Whether you are an American or live elsewhere in the world, we are the change we’ve been hoping for. Like the U.S., our world has become too complex for any one person to be a hero and fix things. It will require many of us to get things working again, and that includes me, Van, those young students and you…yes, you the person who is reading this. Yes, you.

My Emails with Iran

In this past week, I connected with two Iranian futurists based in Tehran who are fellow members in Shaping Tomorrow’s Foresight Network. In our first year we have grown to nearly 1,300 members, mostly professional futurists from all over the world.

I invited these two men to engage in a conversation with me given the posturing of our two governments in recent years and the growing tension and talk of invasion by the U.S. I found myself deeply touched when I learned last week they were familiar with my work. I’m known in Iran? I suspect my surprise was largely due to a complete misunderstanding of what the people and the country are like. After all, I have never been there and have only known FORMER citizens of Iran, or Persia as it was called in its past incarnation, and a relative handful at that. As an example of my ignorance, I hadn’t realized Iran is not a Arab country. They speak Farsi and English.

The conversation has just begun, only a couple of days now, but I can already see we have much to learn from one another. One of the men sent me two documents yesterday; one was a 2002 open letter to Americans which he translated for a student-friend of his. It pleads for a creative, conscious and wise approach to resolving conflict rather than the saber-rattling and blustery rhetoric by both governments. Here is a link to the Letter.

The other document was a white paper created by Israeli intelligence on the subject of Iranian cultural values, self-image and negotiation style. He thought that while Israelis may be most critical and judgmental of Iran, I would still find their assessment interesting and informative. Indeed, I did.

I have invited each of them to post here if they so choose and invite anyone else to comment on this entry for the month of May. 

Liberating Ourselves From Our Slavemasters

In my newsletter this month, I wrote about liberating ourselves from the unwanted influences of all the systems in which we find ourselves - family, industry, schools, friends, work, location, race, nationality, religion, etc. Perhaps hundreds of systems find their way of influencing what we do and how we think and we are mostly unaware of theses forces.

New Dimensions Radio's Justine Toms emailed me after reading my editorial and asked:

You point out that emancipation "from insidious systems cannot take place until 1. we learn to recognize systems dysfunction and 2. we become more aware of the various systems affecting us. . . "

Good advice . . now, how do we do this? . . . after all, we are swimming in the sea of this dysfunction and, like fish in water, we are not aware of the very sea we are in.   To begin to actually name the various dysfunctions, and then to hear many points of view as to how others are going about dismantling them in their business and in their lives would be of interest to me.

Prompted by Justine's question I thought this month's blog subject could be sharing experiences others have had in breaking free of multiple insidious system influences.

I invite you to share your experiences or yoru challenges.

I also want to share this very inspriting video with you all: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229 .

Maintaining Good Attitudinal Hygiene: Getting Clean and Healthy - Mentally, Spiritually and Emotionally

Most of us pay pretty close attention to our physical cleanliness. We shower, brush our teeth and perform daily bodily functions with intention and consciousness. In the West, it is considered good personal hygiene and adds assurances we’ll remain healthy.

According to Wikipedia, “The term "hygiene" is a reference to Hygieía oder Hygeía, the Greek goddess of health, cleanliness and sanitation (Roman equivalent: Salus). Hygiene is also a science that deals with the promotion and preservation of health.

In some countries, personal hygiene has become more an issue of social acceptance or fear of offending others with annual sales of deodorant, lotion, mouthwash, powder and cream in the billions. But the hygienic focus is almost always physical. We pay close attention to our hair, teeth, underarms, genitals, nails and underarms – all parts of our physical bodies. Some of us exercise regularly, watch our diets and take supplements so we feel better and enjoy better health. But how much attention do we pay to our emotional, spiritual and mental health? What about our “attitudinal hygiene?”

How much attention do we pay to our intellectual diets? How discerning are we about what we read or watch on TV or hear on radio? What attention do we pay to the lyrics of the music we listen to or the talk shows and Sunday morning pundits we endure.

What degree of consciousness are we employing when we allow ourselves to become emotionally constipated, with suppressed feelings bottled up and turning rancid inside us? 

We take such care to avoid infections of our bodies yet most of us are so careless about exposing our thinking and feelings to infection from negativity, cynicism, resentments and imagined fears. How well do we nourish ourselves spiritually? Do we maintain our spiritual practice whether it is structured religion, private meditation or walks in Nature?

How would you rate your hygiene in these three areas of your life? This might be something to consider – perform an inventory of sorts. Where could you improve your health spiritually, emotionally and intellectually?

In seems to me that we’d have a much healthier society and a much better world if we spread the idea of good personal hygiene to include the entire environment around us, the people we spend time with, the physical space we occupy, the entertainment we consume as well as what we eat and drink. Good attitudinal hygiene offers us an opportunity to be healthy emotionally, spiritually and mentally as well as physically. As comprehensively healthy people we will more likely be making wiser more mature choices and, therefore, create a better future for ourselves, our children and generations to come.

A Gratification Society: Is It Driving Us to Extinction?

I am starting to write an editorial for my monthly newsletter, FutureShapers Monthly, in which I focus on the shift of paradigms society must experience to create a sustainable future. One of the  behaviors that will be changing when this paradigm shift occurs will likely be a reduced adolsecent demand for everything right away. We have become an “on demand society” and fully expect everything to be available to us now, right now! And the market accommodates this demand as things continue to move faster and faster to keep up with this mass obsession with “I want it now.”

Is this drive to gratification on demand healthy for us? Or is it serving as a palliative for our over-stimulated psyches leading us to becoming so obsessive about accumulating material stuff and experiences?

If there is any chance for us to transform to a sustainable society we must curb our propensity to obsessively consume. We will need to let go of this insatiable albeit adolescent desire for instant gratification.

As we accept greater responsibility for our reality, our world, we will pass through passages of emotional and spiritual maturity that we’ve all known only on a physical level. This is the transformation that awaits us as a species. This is the passageway to a new way of living and working together.

I welcome your thoughts.

If I’m So Sane the World Must Be Nuts!

Either I’m insane or the world is! Since I feel pretty much okay, I surmise that the world around me in certifiably insane.

Remember that old saw about the definition of insanity: continuing to do the same thing expecting a different result each time?  Well the collective consciousness we call society-as-a-whole appears to either insist upon or at least condone doing things we know don’t work. Yet we keep doing them, over and over again!

We resort to war when we know wars don’t resolve the conflict. We claim to want a better life for our children and heirs yet we continue sacrificing the environment and spoiling the ecosystem which future generations need for sustained life on Earth. We demand freedom, democracy and human rights yet we enslave ourselves with debt and a variety of addictions that rob us of free choice. We demand fairness and social justice but witness gross injustices without muttering a word of protest.

Most of the systems we have created are compromised. Their primary purpose is no longer what we created them to do but simply to survive. In systems lingo this means “not change” or remain stable. So the legal system may not be just. People may get ill in hospitals. Deaths increase when doctors take holidays. Democratic governments forget to serve the people and start serving themselves. Aggressive war decrees against drugs, terror and poverty results in escalating their use not diminishing them. Schools stunt learning in children. These are just a few of the examples of systems gone astray from their original purposes.

Our revered sciences tell us that we’re all interconnected yet we act as if we are quite separate from one another, almost alien to one another! We rush to fundamentalist viewpoints of all varieties despite knowing that it polarizes rather than integrates us. We engage the complex systems we have created with childish naiveté, as if the problems facing us can be solved simplistically. We are so in love with our technologies that we rush to put them to work for us without concern for the long-term effects they will have on life as we know it. If we possess the ability to do something, we feel compelled to do it! Discernment be damned, “progress” at all costs!

And, despite the feedback and the gross breakdowns we keep doing it over and over again!

Just who is insane here?

There’s been talk among modern mystics of a coming Age of Wisdom, when a more mature human surfaces to bring wise counsel to the widespread adolescence running amuck in the world today. But where are these wiser, more mature people who would bring sanity to today’s dominant cultures? Where are the elders who will show the rest of us what impact our insanity will have on us, our children and our children’s children?

Are these prophesized wise elders going to show up and save the day like modern day superheroes? Or are they already here, quietly pretending to be sane like the rest of us? Does this Age of Wisdom depend on people who haven’t yet arrived on Earth or is it living in potential within all of us, waiting to be called forth like the innate adult strength that resides in the older teenager, able to be tapped as soon as adulthood is fully embraced.

Are we all pretending everyone else is nuts so we can feel sane? Are we waiting for someone else to take the lead and save us from ourselves? Or, are we denying that we are the ones on whose shoulders our future depends? Are we avoiding the responsibility of invoking sanity and maturity in our world so our children and their children have a decent chance of lives worth living?

No wonder people choose to believe that God will rescue their butts, given the insanity that prevails in our world. No wonder others choose to believe that if they kill infidels they will be rewarded in the afterlife. Both of these extreme views rely on a next life to make the insanity in this life more tolerable, to justify an existence that is otherwise intolerable.

If the world is nuts, we might accept any beliefs that promise respite, consolations or temporary vacations from the insanity.

My choice is different. My choice is to ask us all to tap that mature adult that lives within each one of us and ask him or her to stand tall for a sane approach to affirming life here on Earth, now, transcending the dysfunctionality of the systems we have created, shaping a future that honors and respects all life, is spiritually fulfilling and environmentally sustainable.

Let’s all try sanity for a change and start acting more like the mature and wise adults we know we can be. Then our world will start looking better and the future will be much more promising.

One World, Indivisible

[I am posting my editorial from my July newsletter - FutureShapers Monthly - because I think the subject is important and there is urgency in addressing this. - JR]

The phrase “one nation, indivisible” is very familiar to Americans of my generation who have learned “The Pledge of Allegiance” to their country’s flag in their early school years. Ironically, the pledge was written in the late 1800s for a flag seller as part of an advertising campaign. More recently the words “under God” were inserted between “nation” and “indivisible” but I still recall the original version which I must have repeated hundreds if not thousands of times as a child and young adult. 

                                                                      American schoolchildren pledging allegiance to the flag circa late 1930s

Abraham Lincoln’s famous 1858 speech emphasized "a house divided against itself cannot stand” – words that also come to mind as I was pondering the excess divisiveness so prevalent in my country today. We are presently building silos of ideologies, isolating ourselves into factions and preaching to our choirs about the faults and defects of “the other.” Each silo is suffering from “groupthink” – reinforcing its own dogma and avoiding any feedback that disagrees with the party line. This simply builds the walls dividing us higher and higher, making reconciliation more difficult.

In my mind, there is no doubt that we are well along the way of irreparably dividing ourselves here in the U.S.  I get emails every week, from liberal friends and conservative friends, some calling themselves libertarians, some progressives, that shock me with their vitriol, the mean-spirited nature of their commentaries or, in lieu of their own compositions, the texts they are forwarding which contain such sarcasm and dismissive characterizations of people with whom they disagree. It is as if many people, friends of mine included, are sacrificing relationships in order to be right, subordinating community to their righteousness and, in some cases, putting their opinions ahead of friendships and family. Technology is allowing us to go beyond the limits of common decency because we don’t have “the other” facing us; we can hide behind the shield of technology and hurl our insults from the safety of our computers.

We are taking our opinions far too seriously when we put our prejudices and ideologies ahead of people. There is nothing wrong or unhealthy with contention, debate and even argument as long as it is in the context of respect and relationship with the other person. Successful people realize the benefits of contentiousness and debate. It often improves the outcome as both sides sometimes see value in the other’s position and, usually, a better result emerges. George Washington saw this in our nation’s founding. A strong advocate of opposing sides on issues engaging in debate, he recognized how this could lead to optimal outcomes. However, he was also wary of partisanship that could lead to concretized positions and less than optimum results, often a compromise to the lowest common denominator.

Healthy differences of opinion have helped America grow and prosper. Respectful contentiousness comes with citizenship in a democracy! The diversity of ideas and cultures has proven incredibly valuable in our nation’s history. After the contentiousness the opposing players can laugh together, have a beer and leave with good natured feelings for all concerned. But vitriolic, cruel and dismissive sarcasm and meanness leads to rifts that may prove permanently damaging to others – people, perhaps even friends and family members. Like war without explosions, it leads to deep wounds that cannot be healed with a beer or a laugh.

What effect does this “dissing” (disrespectful and dismissive behavior) of each other have in the rest of the world? How many culture wars are going on, above the surface and below, where the opposing parties harbor hate and disrespect for the other side. America, once a model for the power of a diverse democracy, has now become a model of separation, “us versus them” which reflects in our domestic politics (which is reported around the world every day) and our hegemonious foreign policy. The world is becoming more divided in stark contrast to the 1945 U.S.-sponsored vision for a united world (the United Nations). The United States is now engaged in a new “civil war;” instead of blue versus grey it is red versus blue..

We are creating a “divisble” nation and a “divisble” world. Can the nation still stand if it is divided? Was Lincoln wrong? Or will it fall apart as ideological factions take precedence over relationships with fellow citizens?

Borders on maps are human constructs which are artificial anyway so the world won’t really be divided – only the people will. States and nations are also artificial so they may go extinct but not the continents on which they once stood. The planet will survive our divisiveness but will our civilizations? 

Do you know the story of the collapse of the Easter Island civilization?  They could build 80-ton statues 33 feet high which remain there today as evidence of their civilization. And they could drag them 12 miles where they arranged them in a pattern, a seemingly impossible task given their lack of technology. They could navigate the Pacific Ocean, reaching the most remote islands in the world. However, to do this they could also cut down their rich rain forest, ultimately dooming themselves to extinction.  With no trees left for fishing canoes, the Easter Islanders turned to finding more and more reasons to hate one another, eventually resorting to cannibalism and devouring each other. The population fell by 90% in a few years and neither the society nor the island ecology have recovered in the 300 years since.

How can people be so dumb, you might ask? Evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond says that sometimes it's a failure to perceive a problem, especially if it comes on very slowly, like climate change. Often it's a matter of conflicting interests with no resolution at a higher level than the interests --- warring clans, greedy industries. Or there may be a failure to examine and understand the past.

Unless more people start insisting on respectful communications about their ideologies – their “interests” - and encourage dialogue rather than war as a means of reconciling their different interests, our species will continue to divide and fragmentize. Will our incivility toward one another degenerate into some modern version of cannibalism? Unless we cease this warring – domestically with each other and internationally through our foreign policy – we just might continue to perceive the problem until it is too late. 

We are better than this! We can do much better in getting along with one another. So let’s use technology to bring us closer together, not further separate us. Let’s stand for a higher road in reconciling our differences. If we insist on perpetuating this divisiveness, humans could be added to the endangered species list.

Recorded history has been consistent regarding the lifecycle of empires. All the ones with which we are familiar – Mongolian, Spanish, Portuguese, Roman, British, Soviet and Ottoman to name a few – have not been overturned by another power. All of them have imploded, weighted down by their own hubris, much like Easter Island. Let us walk a different path and cease this divisiveness before we ruin this great country. Let us start the essential self-reflection we have so stalwartly avoided.

Join me in ending the cycles of incivility, negativity, disrespect and sarcasm. Take a stand by refusing to engage in conversations or email exchanges that perpetuate these cycles that take us all down to lower and lower levels of human relationship. Stop listening to it; stop repeating it; stop encouraging this pattern of divisiveness. Instead of opposing what we don’t like, let’s start proposing what we do want. Instead of spouting our opinions and preaching to those in our silo, let’s reach out to those who have different viewpoints. Nothing will change unless we do.

The Future of Organizations

Two weeks ago I delivered a two-day workshop on systems thinking to a group of 40 executives for a business school in Trinidad. Subsequent mail exchanges with some of the participants has moved me to start this conversation, specifically on organization systems and their functionality, leadership and vitality. So here goes....

One cannot engage the subject of the future of the world without engaging the organizations we have created and address their dysfunctionality, the way they seem to resist change and the apparency that no one is in control of them sometimes.  The world will never change unless our organizations do.

When one is anticipating making meaningful change occur in a system - be it a company, institution, government - systems thinking is not only a huge advantage I would say it is essential if the change is major and you want it to last. Some people merely want to "tweak" their organizations, make an improvement in some aspect of its functioning. Sometimes incremental change can be perfomed linearly. But others may want to reinvent the culture entirely, or make significant changes to it. This would be meaningful change or what many call "organizational transformation."

I have written a lot about The Conscious Organization, which I envision as the ultimate system for functionality and effectiveness. You can read some of these articles and past issues of my newsletter at www.Renesch.com.

I would be interested in hearing of real life situations where meaningful change is desired but thwarted by the system. Anyone interested?   

NEW QUERY: See another inquiry that may interest some of you.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way!

I was walking in the rain, quite a torrential storm actually, somewhat of an oddity here in San Francisco. Rain-geared to the hilt, I was trudging up one of our steep hills with parka hood snuggly fastened leaving me a tiny face hole for visibility and air. As often occurs during my daily schleps about the city, my mind was somewhat blank for the moment, free of thoughts about the day. Then the now famous scene from the 1976 movie “Network” popped into my mind, where actor Peter Finch, playing the part of a deranged news anchor, asks his television viewers to go to their windows, open them and scream into the night, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” 

I have been writing and speaking about creating a different kind of world for many years. There’s no question that the consensus reality is pretty resigned to it being “the way things are” as people go about doing “the best they can under the circumstances.” Yet their very behavior argues for the circumstances. Most people’s consciousness is rooted in this resignation, this defeated state of mind that accepts small consolations instead of holding out for larger visions.

As this movie scene from the 1970s flashed by it dawned on me that this might be a good subject to explore in a blog.

There is little doubt the human mind is a powerful force, for good or evil. We have plenty of examples which I needn’t detail here. Ideas can be transformative, uplifting and awe inspiring as well as destructive, depressing and the cause for widespread suffering in the world.

An idea that is killing us spiritually, emotionally and even physically is one that puts limits on what is possible for the world and all living things that reside here. This idea, this thought, is reinforced with lots of rationale conjured up by our collective ego-minds. Each of these reasons seemingly add legitimacy to the idea that we can do nothing to change things; that things simply are the way they are and our job is to do the best we can within that limitation. Here are a few samples:
• I’m only one person and don’t have the power to change things;
• There are too many big problems; the situation is out of hand; 
• Better people than me have tried and failed;
• I have enough challenges on my own without taking on the world’s problems;
• I’m much too busy to think about it much less do anything.

This is the litany with which we fill our head instead of putting our values into action. They are excuses for inaction. That’s all they are. Democracy is a team sport and we’re all on the team. Many people who claim to be champions of democracy have taken to sitting in the grandstands, self selecting to be spectators instead of players or coaches. They have chosen to observe democracy like a play or a movie rather than performing their role as a team player.

Reviewing the five excuses I mentioned above, do you see a common thread that runs through each of them? Besides each of them being a cop-out, they all reside in a context of self-pity, martyr or victim. Each of them is a means to avoiding that feeling of powerlessness one is bound to encounter when one takes on a project of global scope, a project beyond one’s familiar comfort zone. By avoiding that feeling of powerlessness, those who rely on these excuses argue for their own powerlessness. Ironic huh?

Can you imagine how the world would be if everyone subscribes to these excuses? How would the world be if everyone watched from the sidelines? Well, for one thing, there’d be nothing to watch!

Now can you imagine how the world would be if most of us got back onto the playing field and rejoined the team, either as a suited-up player, a coach, team managers or whatever role was there to be filled? Can you imagine an organization or a country where there were more players than onlookers? Wouldn’t that be exciting! Can you imagine the kind of company or nation we might have with enthusiastic, completely engaged workers or citizens? And what about a world that consisted on actively engaged global patriots?

What would this cost? What would it cost us to stop settling for a resigned reality and start creating the reality that we really want? It will cost us our cynicism. It will also cost our resignation. It will cost us our excuses. It will cost us our victimhood and self-pity. From where I sit, these are all things I’m very willing to let go of, perhaps even eager to turn loose. After all, holding onto them sucks vitality from my soul and occupies space in my consciousness that I could put to far better use.

The world doesn’t need to be this way. It doesn’t need to have growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. We don’t need to be so damn busy all the time. We don’t need to be worried about spoiling our Natural home, destroying our environment. Our world doesn’t need to endure genocide, wars, murder and all the other violence.

Life for our kids doesn’t need to be an endurance contest, filled with shallow consolations here and there while individual spiritual fulfillment, a sustainable environment and social justice remain only dreams. It can be different. But it will take a bunch of us to get into action. Let’s get our butts off the bleacher seats and find out where we can be of the most service and have the most fun while doing it. Let’s get back into the game and shout “It doesn’t have to be this way and I’ll play my part in changing it!”