WE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME, THANKFULLY
Friday, June 5, 2020
We’ve watched this pendulum swing so widely – that everyone’s agenda altered, everyone’s plans and expectations for 2020 scuttled, and everyone’s crystal ball cloudy.
In a few short months, the world tipped on its ear, now we see the pendulum swinging wildly again.
Only this time it’s not the ongoing intractable forces of the pandemic or the resultant economic chaos, it’s about race issues in the U.S., disputes over trade and technology with China, totalitarian regimes and refugees, stock market genuflections, rising oil prices, climate change/tree hugger phobias, space launches and the politics of distraction.
Things, at first blush, appear like they are returning to normal.
But they aren’t.
If you don’t believe that, buy a used airliner or a used airline – they’ve cheap now.
Our personal comfort levels, and returning to a state of mind where the pendulum still swings, but our barometer on the world is settling down.
It’s partly about re-opening, getting out more, and booking a haircut.
It’s our new default position.
I think that is our highest risk – returning to our personal ‘everything is OK’ feeling. Sure, it’s comfortable or even complacent, the way an old sweater keeps us warm and ‘things grandma used to cook’ soothe our anxious bellies …
The world has been turned asunder, and we want to return to things ‘just as they were.’
This is crazy.
We need to change our lives.
Yes, turn them asunder, and not in these chaotic measures they’ve been wrecked by this shutdown and invisible virus, and by the invisible hand of Adam Smith.
If not now, when?
If there was ever a better time to change yourself – to change how you point to the world, and when the world looks to you, what will they see?
Will we be those ‘same as before’ folks who line every street in every city and town, or will we make a difference in ourselves.
There has never been a time with so few barriers on earth – ideas spread virtually, trade and commerce very fast too, never a better time when a thought, debate, or deconstruction of any product or practice can be made.
Don’t change the whole world. Not yet, not all at once.
Start with a nation of one.
You.
Me.
Each of us islands, population one.
Surrounded by oceans of information and opportunity – and yes, those waters are always shark-infested, just like every crowd in every land.
We will never be the same.
Thankfully.