It's Not All Bad

Laurence Harrould - Friday, May 14, 2010

If you listen to the news on the radio, watch it on TV, read the newspapers and news magazines you could be forgiven for thinking the world is "going to hell in a handbasket" (whatever that means). While there's a great deal which needs addressing it's not all bad. Here are a couple of examples.

Gen Y is often criticised for being selfish, disloyal, have unreasonable expectations and more. However, if we shift our paradigm we can see the same group as being self-motivated, take responsibility for their own career development, have great personal networking skills, are globally connected etc. In previous blogs I've talked about the shift from the Age of Pisces into the Age of Aquarius. The underlying paradigm of Pisces is that the value of an individual is determined by what they can contribute to society. The paradigm for Aquarius is that the purpose of society is to support the individual in achieving the best they can be. This means that society provides the support, infrastructure, technology etc to enable people to achieve things they couldn't do on their own. Jessica Watson's solo world sailing trip is a good example.

In the 1970's a some friends & I set up an evening college in Katoomba. One of the courses we ran was called "Domestic Survival". It was aimed at building skills and knowledge in self-sufficiency. One of the classes was on use of solar energy. We had a researcher from NSW University who helped build a solar water heater. This consisted of copper pipes attached to a sheet of copper, painted black and encased in a box with a glass cover. At the time this was "bleeding edge" technology. 30 years on we have an incredible range of sustainable and renewable forms of energy generation available. Our challenge now is to implement this technology on a scale that will have a real impact. Israel is an interesting example. It is the first country to be introducing fully electric cars in the near future. Approximately, 90% of all homes use solar water heating and Israel is the only country in the world where there were more trees at the end of the 20th century than there were at the beginning. This is happening while existing in a constant state of war and under existential threat.

So, while there are a huge number of challenges (finding competent, capable and visionary political leaders being one of the greatest - but that's another story) there are also many wonderful things happening. We need to shift our thinking so we're focusing on the positives while being mindful of and working to address the challenges.

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