There’s a story I’ve told each of our three adult children more than once. The point is that each generation has unique challenges. The world has ALWAYS been a dangerous place.
Go back to the caveman, and you have to wonder from our point in history today, how did they survive the wild beast attacks, feed themselves daily and propagate the species? But they did it. They persevered.
There’s a lot to be said for perseverance. We tend to forget that.
With all the modern amenities we have to simplify our lives and make them easier, it becomes harder and harder to look back and actually understand what it was to live like through previous generations. How the heck did you live without a washer and drier? You mean there was only black and white TV when you grew up? Automatic dishwashers didn’t start becoming commonplace in households until the 1970s. And don’t even get me started on life before the Internet.
The point is, we tend not to look back on progress. We live with the progress and we expect progress. But progress doesn’t always follow an expected or easily mapped path. It jumps around and suddenly pops out and surprises you.
Back to our adult kids: I reinforce with them stories about our human inventiveness when I find articles that solve some of the more significant global problems we face today. I think it’s important to recognize there are millions of people in the world looking to solve some of our seemingly intractable problems. And I hopefully make a point to them that they can choose to be part of those solutions. That it will take good people for us to clean up some of the mess humans have made. But it can be done.
Our kids’ generation gives me great hope. It seems they get a lot of criticism. What I see is a large number of educated young adults in their 20s who have information and education at their fingertips to improve the world, bring us together, and that gives me hope.
Other things do as well. Sometimes it’s driving by a cornfield that gives me positive thoughts about the future.
This past weekend, for example, my wife and I drove up to Door County, Wisconsin to do some social distancing hiking with my younger brother and his wife. I took the leisure drive, getting rerouted because of construction to Podunk America.
Bam, there in the cornfield, way up north, a long row of solar panels being installed. Then a whole cornfield of solar panels, then another whole cornfield. Row after row after row. That gave me hope.
I beamed. I thought about the younger generation in the world and what is being done to create sustainable non-emission electricity and I grew more hopeful.
There are always human problems. They change with each generation. Some are more complex today due to technologies we employ. And that may mean more complicated solutions requiring sustained commitment for the good of our society and the world.
With hope and drive, we will find those solutions. They will not be perfect. That is part of our quest. Keep growing, keep searching because our species is designed to problem-solve.
As long was we keep that in mind and use our ingenuity, creativity, intelligence and drive, there will be hope.
Go back to the caveman, and you have to wonder from our point in history today, how did they survive the wild beast attacks, feed themselves daily and propagate the species? But they did it. They persevered.
There’s a lot to be said for perseverance. We tend to forget that.
With all the modern amenities we have to simplify our lives and make them easier, it becomes harder and harder to look back and actually understand what it was to live like through previous generations. How the heck did you live without a washer and drier? You mean there was only black and white TV when you grew up? Automatic dishwashers didn’t start becoming commonplace in households until the 1970s. And don’t even get me started on life before the Internet.
The point is, we tend not to look back on progress. We live with the progress and we expect progress. But progress doesn’t always follow an expected or easily mapped path. It jumps around and suddenly pops out and surprises you.
Back to our adult kids: I reinforce with them stories about our human inventiveness when I find articles that solve some of the more significant global problems we face today. I think it’s important to recognize there are millions of people in the world looking to solve some of our seemingly intractable problems. And I hopefully make a point to them that they can choose to be part of those solutions. That it will take good people for us to clean up some of the mess humans have made. But it can be done.
Our kids’ generation gives me great hope. It seems they get a lot of criticism. What I see is a large number of educated young adults in their 20s who have information and education at their fingertips to improve the world, bring us together, and that gives me hope.
Other things do as well. Sometimes it’s driving by a cornfield that gives me positive thoughts about the future.
This past weekend, for example, my wife and I drove up to Door County, Wisconsin to do some social distancing hiking with my younger brother and his wife. I took the leisure drive, getting rerouted because of construction to Podunk America.
Bam, there in the cornfield, way up north, a long row of solar panels being installed. Then a whole cornfield of solar panels, then another whole cornfield. Row after row after row. That gave me hope.
I beamed. I thought about the younger generation in the world and what is being done to create sustainable non-emission electricity and I grew more hopeful.
There are always human problems. They change with each generation. Some are more complex today due to technologies we employ. And that may mean more complicated solutions requiring sustained commitment for the good of our society and the world.
With hope and drive, we will find those solutions. They will not be perfect. That is part of our quest. Keep growing, keep searching because our species is designed to problem-solve.
As long was we keep that in mind and use our ingenuity, creativity, intelligence and drive, there will be hope.