Waiting for tomorrow

I know so many people in my personal life that live under the assumption of a promise that tomorrow will be better than today.

Capitalism. Investments. Religion. Even climate action requires forward thinking. All make similar promises. Suffer today and tomorrow will be better.

But at the same time, there is this tension that we shove to the background that we don’t get to live forever and tomorrow is no guarantee.

So, what do you do? If we did whatever we wanted all the time then we couldn’t enjoy a clean planet or retirement and who knows if we make all the responsible decisions if we get to enjoy it.

That’s the problem when we view things from an individualist viewpoint—”What about me?” The alternative is to lose the self and think of the collective. However, we also must remember that many of the situations we find unpalatable are the ones we create. Which means, we can also change them. No one is forcing you to go to that job that doesn’t appreciate you. You just need to have the guts to take a chance to change your circumstances.

Lift

It turns out there are several theories of how aircraft can get off the ground. But most of them are debunked.

That’s the importance of the scientific method. We can keep testing until we find a reasonable conclusion. Until we discover the next thing.

What we think is possible and how we explain it are two different things. Sometimes we know something is true and yet we have not found an explanation. Indeed, waiting to find the right answer instead of rushing to find a good enough answer, takes lots of patience but also solves future problems because we are seeing things more clearly.

What do you believe?

Because how you dress, how you talk, where you work, how you spend your money, how you vote, what kind of food you eat…all say something about you.

Every action sends a signal to the rest of the world about what it is you believe.

The numbers

We have attached a number to everything you can think of:

Anniversaries.

Car miles.

The number of heart emojis.

Your bank account.

Quarterlies.

The number of votes.

We do this because humans like to play games and we need ways to measure.

But what we haven’t done is stop and ask, Is this a game we even want to play?

In service of

One becomes a better parent when one remembers to let kids be kids.

Because kids know how to be kids better than adults do.

When we are in service of this idea, kids begin to thrive.

So, the question becomes, how can we give them the right environment to have the most advantageous experience of living in harmony with all their purpose?

Grinding down

We live in a world that grinds people down to simple cogs in a machine. Interchangeable parts in a replaceable system. This works great in a marketplace when you order a lawn mower from Amazon, with parts manufactured in China, assembled in Vietnam, shipped overseas into a warehouse, where a robot pulls it, and then shipped to a regional office, which is then delivered to your door. It’s incredible the cooperation if you think about it.

However, in our chase for efficiency and profits, we have become less human-centric in how we think/act/talk to other people. It is at the root of many of our problems today. And yet, we keep finding ways to continue to appease the marketplace.

People are not here to serve capitalism. Capitalism is here to serve us. When we become so narrow in our way of thinking, when we treat people like cogs–it ultimately changes our thinking. In the end, we lose site why we are here and what it is we are capable of doing.

A constant state of course correction

Doesn’t matter how windy the road is.

What matters is the direction you are going.

And if it’s the “wrong” direction, you simply can turn around and head the other way.

But that’s the thing about life.

There is no “right” way to go.