2006 Tip #15:
It’s there!

Out of the clutter, find simplicity,
From discord, find harmony,
In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.

                                                --Albert Einstein

I like this thought.  I found this gem at the beginning of Chapter 10 in The World Is Flat.

This provocative work by Thomas Friedman  lays out the huge challenges facing the United States (and our youth! as we enter a new internet-connected planet that has millions of additional bright minds entering the economy and competing for jobs that used to be available to only a much more limited few nations.  The universities of India and China are educating their sons and daughters to be at the top of the world—especially in math and science, and technological applications of  new discoveries that will continue to change the world at an even  faster pace. 

Are we up to the challenge?  Mentally? Bright minds focused?
 
Physically?  Where and how are we to invest our nation’s and our personal wealth?

The San Francisco Chronicle on August 30th ran this headline:  “U.S. continues waddle into obesity…”  The story is another fresh report on the obesity crisis and its related health budget crisis.  www.healthyamericans.org tells in more detail the findings of Trust for America’s Health –that  “between 204 and 2005, the percentage of obese people increased in 31 states—including California… At least 27 percent of health care costs in the United States are a result of obesity and a lack of physical exercise.”

This reality—despite all of our efforts to reverse the trends—raises the question beyond flatness—Have parts of the Western World gone soft as well as flat? 

Friedman’s book and Jared Diamond’s on history and technological evolution, Guns, Germs and Steel—the Fates of Human Societies, are the two most important books I’ve read in the last ten years.  I highly recommend them.

While sobering and while riveting in looking at what lies ahead, I find myself better focused, more aware, more ready to tackle the challenges. 

Looking at our strengths, I know we can meet the enormous changes facing us (and forge positive change!) to find opportunity in the midst of the threats and worries.

What does not destroy me
Makes me stronger.                 --Friedrich Nietzche

 

So, as individuals and as a society, let’s toss aside negative thinking. Let’s seek out the opportunities. Let’ move past others bogged down in negativity.

Theodore Roosevelt has these famous words that fit here:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows neither victory or defeat. 

It’s there!
Light instead of gray twilight. 
Personal and community triumphs. 
Plenty of opportunity.