PEOPLE LIKE US
Friday, July 22, 2022
Are we ‘who we are’ or ‘who we want to be’ in the world?
Can we live in both worlds, one of being rooted/grounded in who we are while working on who we want to be?
I think one argument is that we cannot escape who we are.
Still, I believe we can escape or out-run our circumstances – and make changes to what we want to change in our lives, but by the time mid-life arrives and we recognize what a short time we have to make any meaningful impact on the world is sliding quickly like fine sand through the pinch-point in the hourglass.
Which, you might argue, makes any effort to change anything meaningful a futile attempt.
Except for those of us alive today, everyone ever born on earth is dead, so it is up to us and offspring to change the world, to the extent things can be changed.
OK, agreed, time is short – how many of the many billions living or dead made a game-changing impact on the world.
Sure, we can all reach for our short list of names, but some of the most important things came from people who were not scholars, rich or powerful.
Consider Guttenberg for instance …
And countless others, people like us.
Reader feedback:
It’s an interesting shift that seems to be growing. I think ‘less is enough’ is a lesson the western world sorely needs to learn. Not only in terms of what we produce and consume, but how we operationalize our values. Maybe we need fewer things and more nature. - GE, Calgary
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