I was thinking about the idea of a license to practice a profession.

The essence of this concept is that a body representative of a profession has taken the time and effort to create standards of knowledge and ability required to practice.

Why do this?

Usually, it’s because we want the public for whom these professionals supply their services to know they can expect those who are licensed to be able to supply an adequate, consistent,  and in some instances, safe service.

Usually licensed professionals also carry forms of liability insurance such that if they make a mistake, the client or customer may have proper recourse.

The general public, for whom these professional services exist, wishes to know what the licensed professional is capable of, and allowed to perform.

You shouldn’t be cutting out a tumor on someone’s kidney if you don’t have a license to practice medicine. What if you cut out the kidney instead?

You shouldn’t be representing someone in a court of law if you don’t have a license to practice law. What if you forgot to prepare your pleading documents for the court?

We probably don’t want the Captain of the plane we are on to be less than licensed to fly!

But one of the downsides to the concept of a license to practice, is it also sometimes becomes a status symbol.  More than a license to practice, it becomes a license to look down upon others or to stand taller than most.

And it often constrains our ability to see beyond our scope, to find an alternative path or solution.

A license shouldn’t define you.  It shouldn’t constrain you. What it should do is augment you.

What I mean by this is that a license to practice often defines those of us who choose this path, rather than simply providing you with the ability to use this special tool.  

The more tools you accumulate, licensed or not, the more you become capable of exploring different paths toward solutions.

If you’re a doctor and you’ve explored other paths in nutrition and exercise, you can see other possibilities for your patients.

If you’re a physiotherapist who’s explored psychology, you can see the solution for your client’s pain might have more to do with how you help them define their solution than with the techniques you use.

If you’ve explored neuroscience as a performance coach, you might see where optimizing the neurological system might create better outcomes than adding more load to the bar.

I interviewed David Epstein on the LYM podcast several years ago and the through line of his book “Range” explores the value of being a generalist versus a specialist.  He has explored multiple professional domains and it informs his writing and exploration of subject matter.

“Breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. That is, the more contexts in which something is learned, the more the learner creates abstract models, and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to a situation they’ve never seen before, which is the essence of creativity.”

― David Epstein, Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

What I’m trying to say is the license opens a door, but how you explore the room beyond the door is what counts. Don’t make your license your constraint, allow it to be a springboard to exploration.

Instead of the license defining how you deliver your craft, and the expectations of your client, make the license serve a greater purpose.  It allows you to explore your range knowing you have a central anchor of capacity you can lean on in darker times.

The letters and certificates on the wall mean nothing to the person you serve, what means something is how you serve them and how you help them solve their problems.  Build your reputation and character on the foundation of your ability to be resourceful and prepared for anything.

Exploring your range is the essence of the journey of life.

The essence of the Labor Day holiday in North America is the effective celebration of our devotion to work, and the acknowledgment that after work comes rest.

When you delve into the history, the holiday began in the late 1800s with a push from the working class to honor their effort to create the foundation of society, a shout-out to the blue-collar.

Over time, it has grown to mean the end of summer, and the beginning of the school year, for most a chance to regroup before the fall/winter is upon us.

The holiday has blended into all the other holidays on the map, a chance for some to reap the benefits and respite of a three-day weekend.

For others, the unfortunate reality is that the holiday is likely a blip on the radar screen of the grind.

Throughout the last few years, I’ve noticed more and more as I spend time in the back of taxis and now UBERs on my occasional trips to teach or consult, that more and more of the drivers of these vehicles do it not as a main thing, but mainly as a third or fourth thing!

Side hustle, plus, plus!

Just in the time that I have been on this earth, we’ve gone from one-salary families to two-salary families, and now multi-salary/sources families.  When does it stop?

Governments get blamed for policy decisions, the rich get blamed for establishing capitalistic bullseyes like the stock exchange and consumerism.

But the truth lies somewhere in our guts and our minds.  Our need to succeed, defined by a greater force that has existed for millennia, that accumulation and wealth are the objective measures of success.

What house we have, what title we have, what car we drive, what phone we carry, what computer we use, what clothes we wear, what restaurants we eat at…….it goes on and on.

There’s always another level, there’s always something more or better.

We find ourselves running faster and faster on a treadmill that has no limit.

Just think back to the 2008 economic implosion, the Dow was under 12,000 points, 20,000 seemed like the Mount Everest of market possibilities, and yet here we are 16 years later and we’re over 40,000 points!

I was talking to some friends who work in the pharmaceutical industry. The common theme is being salaried to do one job, but effectively managing the workload of two!

In a business world where the profit is incredible, and the supposed modus operandi is better human health (NOT!). I was kind of shocked that the corporate end game was not better working standards or care for the health and wellbeing of the employees, but rather how can we squeeze more juice out of the lemon?

But we don’t realize that we self-determine this reality.  We expect our end-of-year returns on our investments, we want the next level of the ladder, and we aspire to the grass is greener effect.

Our inability to be in the present and to be grateful for that which we have rather than pining for what we have not is the ultimate driver of this phenomenon.  

We can blame it on the big bad world outside, but we are the drivers, not the backseat passengers.

Think about it. Catch yourself the next time you are sitting on a park bench, back deck, or patio, chilling.  

Do you see the color of the sky? Do you hear the birds chirping? Do you feel the wind blow past your cheek?  Do you sense the temperature, the sun upon your face?

Or do you look down at your phone, and check the messages of variable sort?

The next time you are out with a good friend or relative, and you are chatting at the table, catching up.  

Do you hear what they are saying? Do you see what they are feeling on their face?  Do you listen to their thoughts, or do you listen to your own?

Worse, do you find yourself picking up your phone and scanning for nothing?  But it’s something important, right?

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir and you’ve got it sorted out. You are likely one of the few. And if that’s the case, I apologize for the sermon.

For most these days though, it’s become our nature, our need.  We’re obsessed with what we don’t have.

On this occasion of contemplation called Labor Day, take a moment to contemplate rest, what it feels like, what it means, and why it should mean more.

If you struggle with this, or the balance of life, I begin my next cohort of the LYM Life Lab in mid-September, have a look here and consider joining me on this journey called life! 

Registration closes September 6th.

My father and mother divorced when I was sixteen years old.  I really didn’t get to have much of a relationship with my Dad, and in later years, when perhaps I could have, he lived 1000s of miles away.

My Dad passed in 2002.

Why do I tell you this?  

Well, often one or both of our parents act in a manner of mentorship in our life. After the early years when they organize and construct our lives, they become sounding boards, or advisors in much of what we explore.

I didn’t have that in my life. But even if I did, most likely my father wouldn’t have known what to say to me in many situations I ran into in life, because he had no experience or perspective about much of what I was exploring.

My Dad was a diplomat, intelligent and well spoken, worldly and accomplished. But he didn’t know much about the world of human performance that I lived in through most of my life.

I was lucky in life, at a number of key moments in my life, there was someone who represented mentorship by my side.  Each and every time, they provided me with the necessary support and direction to help me steward my career.

That being said, I never had a formal arrangement with anyone, and much of the advice or direction I got from my mentors was adhoc and sporadic.  I always felt supported, but I am sure I missed much of what I could have explored just because I didn’t know any better.

All through my life I set goals, drove hard toward them, achieved them, and then looked toward the next one.  I always had this feeling of emptiness after accomplishing things. I couldn’t figure out why, I just didn’t feel satisfied.  My mentors were great at helping me achieve my goals, but no one ever asked me why I wanted them.

No one, especially myself.  I knew what I wanted, but I never contemplated why I wanted it, or why it mattered to me.  It was as though this was all what I was supposed to do.  What life prescribed for me.

Until about ten years ago now when I engaged the support of a mentor.  Someone who provided me with a construct on which to self-assess, and self-explore.  A process of understanding how my mindset determined my choices, and how I could better understand my choices based on anchors I created for myself.  How could I drive my own bus so to speak.

Formal mentorship arrangements are not a guarantee that you will find yourself making the right decisions every time, or avoiding every pitfall, but they do give you a better chance of navigating life with less of the drama.

More importantly, a good mentor will help you understand the hard you want to do, the hard you choose to do, and why you want to do it.  When you know why, you’re more apt to step through the challenge, and when you complete the process, you will better own the outcomes.

One of the biggest gifts I received from a mentor was the understanding that I would never arrive. There was no finish line.  Life is an iterative process, and owning the process of your internal growth is the ultimate voyage, not the destination.

Mentorship is not something we should seek in times of chaos and distress, it’s what we should align with before such times occur.  We also don’t need to wait until we hit our mid-life crisis to recognize the value, we can begin to purposefully craft our lives from the moment we begin to take charge of our direction.

If you’re looking for formal mentorship, I start my next cohort of the LYM Life Lab on September 10th at 7 pm EST.  

Send me a reply note if you want more information or book a call.

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone where they never asked you a question or served the proverbial ball to you?

You know the situation, you open up with a “How are you, what’s going on in your life?”  And they begin to tell you everything that is happening and has happened, somehow never returning the favor.

Or maybe they finally ask you how you are, and after you’ve responded with a few stories, they once again shift the direction of the conversation to themselves.

A good conversation is a dance.  It’s two people with a bend on curiosity, listening, digesting, flowing, and understanding.

Yes, understanding!  

Meaning, you get what the other person is sharing, and you ask questions to clarify, or interpret.

Then you volley, like a tennis match, you counterpoint or elaborate on an idea. You expose a need for more context or content.  You are interested, and so are they!

Not every interaction can be a conversation. Sometimes there is a utility in the interaction, a need to achieve something, move through something, or negotiate.

I’m not talking about those kinds of conversations.

These are the moments you cultivate. You arrange a connection to share, catch up, or go deeper with someone you care about.

They’re meant to be an intricate dance. A flow of back and forth.  An expansion and exploration.

Not verbal diarrhea!

Breath, pause, listen, understand, and be curious.

If you’re in a conversation, and you find yourself thinking about what you will be saying next, and how you will respond…….you’re not listening!!

Intentional listening requires you to hear what the other person says, and then find something interesting to expose or clarify.

When both people do this, the conversation becomes rich and powerful.  It ebbs and flows.

You find yourself moving from subject matter to subject matter. One moment talking about a business project, then next discussing your kids or relationships, and then suddenly flowing in and out of current events.

Exploring your belief systems, your philosophies, and those of your counterpart.  It’s a mutual desire to understand each other.

The deeper it gets the idea is not to proselytize or preach, it’s to debate and discuss.

Debate, OMG…..no one can debate anymore. No one wants to have a favorable disagreement.

Great conversations can be heated, and challenging. They can expose us to doubt and re-thinking.

But what a conversation isn’t, is an opportunity to tell someone else about your shit, and never ask a question or seem interested in the person across from you.

You should leave a conversation enriched, informed, and maybe in some cases changed.

Ask yourself this question the next time you’re out with a friend and having an evening of conversation.  When you’re heading home, evening complete, ask yourself what you learned about your friend.  

Ask yourself what you know now that you didn’t know then.

Trouble responding?  

You just had a one-way interaction, not a conversation.  You can do better than that…….right?

You’re richer for listening.

Friendship……

It’s an interesting word because it can connote a myriad of meanings.

My friend might just mean someone I’ve met a few times, a word one might use to infer some sort of connection to a mutual acquaintance in a conversation.

It might describe someone you spend a lot of time around, work with, or hang with from time to time.  You know who they are, they know who you are, and there’s something of interest that brings you together.

Maybe it’s someone you bump into regularly, share a bus ride, or lunch table with each day.

It’s a word that can mean a lot of things.

But the real word, the real meaning…..well that’s intended for people who we really care about, and who really care about us.

A friend, at his or her heart, is meant to mean something deeper, more important, and real.

A friend is someone you’ll go to bat for, step up for, give up for.

You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

You know when they’re not around, or when they’re far away.

You can count on a friend.  They matter to you, and you matter to them.

How many of those do you have?  

How many people really get to know you? How many people do you really know?  

How many people are your friend?

Why is this so important?

A number of studies have explored what seems to create the greatest quality of life, the equation of happiness for lack of a better word.  What makes life worth living?

Most of the time, the central figure in our quality of life is our quality of friendship.  Meaningful friendship.  Real connection, real sharing, real life.

We’re really lucky if we have a handful of these real friends, we’re rich beyond measure if we have more.

But friendship is a two way street, you gotta give if you want to get.  Letting people in is the key ingredient. 

Be selective.

Be picky.

But don’t be alone.

Who are your real friends……..?

I’ve spent a lot of time during the second half of my career training and reconditioning Olympic athletes and I learned a lot from every one of them.

These next few weeks we get to experience the phenomenon of the Olympics.  Wrought with controversy and massive costs, it still evokes a sensation in those who care to watch that is unmatched in the sports world.

True, there are incredible sporting events every year on our calendars, and each has its special nuance and calculus.  But nothing seems to match the incredible spectacle of the Olympic games.

Perhaps because there is a sport there somewhere for just about everyone.  You’re bound to find an event that you find interesting.  And even when you don’t, the intrigue of following a sport you know nothing about, but pits the best of the best against one another, simply stimulates fascination in even the most skeptical.

But it’s really in the finality of it.  The fact that there is only one gold medalist, only one person gets to be anointed with that precious metal.

And, everyone has to wait for four years to get that chance, and if they miss……it may be the last time they ever get that chance.

Sure, numerous athletes have competed in multiple Olympic games, but very few have been adorned with gold in every attempt.

My good friend Dom Gauthier, himself an Olympic athlete and coach once used a great analogy to bring context to the almost impossible mission of winning a gold medal.

Imagine for a second that you want to be a doctor. On your first day in med school, you sit down in the massive auditorium with 100+ other aspiring physicians and wait for those first words from your professor.

Your professor walks in and stands behind the podium at the front of the class and begins by saying, “You are all here to become doctors, but unfortunately only one of you will graduate and attain that recognition.”

Imagine what you would feel.

Would you stay seated, or simply walk out of the room?

Most reading this would say it wouldn’t be worth the effort.

Yet that IS the effort and the requirement assigned to winning a gold medal.  Four years at least of toiling and training, effort, failure, and success to simply be able to compete.  

Winning the gold is like no other impossible task because it’s just simply meant to be that way.  It’s a filter that eliminates the faint of heart, those who won’t do the extra, and those who won’t get up when everyone else has decided to sleep in.

I think we know this of the task, even if we’ve never experienced it. That’s why it’s so incomparable to watch.  You know how hard it was for every single athlete to get there, and now, amongst their peers, they seek to stand on top.

No easy task.

But there always seems to be some who will take it on. Thankfully.

Here’s to a few weeks of watching the impossible become possible for a special few.

Do you wake up each day inspired?

Just a question. Per last week’s blog, I have no judgment here, I am just curious.

Should we wake up in that state of mind each day, or at least most days?

Maybe we need to get our first dose of coffee into us to feel it, but after you’ve woken up, how do you feel about your day?

The reason I ask this is that we keep having this circular conversation about happiness, what it means to be happy, and how we should strive to be happy.  But I for one, don’t believe that is a real aspiration.

I think there are too many factors affecting each day that can render a shift in our immediate state of mind.  Being happy, at its best, is always going to be a moving target.

You can’t control or constrain happiness, it’s an outcome of your mindset, your circumstances, and how you react or cope with those circumstances.

But the concept of inspiration is an aspirational pursuit.  It’s like the dimmer switch on the wall of a room light.  You can turn it up or down as the day goes, but the light is always there.  It’s the light that draws you in, just like a porch light attracts moths in on a hot summer night.

Inspiration is the thing that attracts you toward your work, play, activity, connection, and communication.  It’s the thing that sets your table each day and pushes you when you don’t even know it’s there.

It gets you past the days when things just aren’t going well, or things aren’t right.  It’s what you look towards to remind you about why you do what you do.

My inspiration is the idea that I can create change, challenge convention, and stimulate thought through my actions, and example.  I am inspired to inspire others.

When I asked you if you wake up inspired, I didn’t mean, do you wake up to the sounds of a choir and an aura of light?

What I meant was, do you wake up with a sense of direction?  Do you feel drawn to explore your day, or do you feel resigned to face your day?

What is it you want others to feel when you are around them? 

What is it you wish to bring to the party so to speak?

The essence of how you wish to contribute to others, how you want to impact those you meet and interact with each day is the essence of your own inspiration.

If you’ve never contemplated this question, I offer it for your consideration.

If you have contemplated it, and you do know what inspires you, are you allowing it to inspire you each day, or only sparingly?  Are you constraining your inspiration, or exploring it each day?

If you know it, and you feel it each day when you wake up, then keep sharing it with the world.  You are leaving your mark.

The news this past weekend has caused me to further reflect on judgment.

It’s become the nature of society today, likely always being a part of society and humanity.  We love to judge each other, we love to judge ourselves as well.

But when self-judgment becomes toxic or unbearable, our minds look elsewhere to serve our internal need to feel better about ourselves by looking down or at someone else.

I’m guilty, I’ve done it, way too much. Still do it.  It’s not an easy habit to shed. It’s in our DNA.

Maybe because our neurological foundation is all about self-preservation, we just naturally need to define our environments, circumstances, relationships, and pretty much anything we need to interact with or be connected.

But most of what we judge today has nothing to do with self-preservation, and everything to do with pushing the mirror away.  We want to be right, and we want them to be wrong.

Unfortunately, there is very little right and wrong and a whole lot of grey.

Opinions reign down constantly.  Everyone has them, they are like ass-holes…..heard that one before?

I am fascinated by when something like this past weekend’s news occurs, how fast people can leap to conclusions, define what they saw, believe they are right, or demonize others simply through their lens of perspective.

You have to know you don’t have all the information.  You have to know you are creating your narrative to satisfy something you already believe, no?

How can we come to so many conclusions so easily without all the information?  

Sure, you might share a thought or observation, but to then take the leap of faith that based on that you know there is a conspiracy a plot, or an over-reaching agenda? 

That’s judgment, not curiosity.

If we want to change our society and contribute to being better stewards of our world, we need to shift our narrative from judging others to being more curious about others.

More recently, I’ve begun to watch different news sources, cultivate alternative opinions, and listen more to what is being said.  I felt I was reasonably good at it, but I needed to re-double my efforts.

Why?

Because the internet drives judgment. Judgment sells. Judgment creates fear, and fear motivates.  If we don’t understand something, we become scared of what it might mean or could become.  We build a narrative around the information, we categorize it, and we limit it.

We love to define it, because we can manage our feelings around what we know, but we don’t know what to do with the nebulous possibilities….that’s scary.

The truth is we don’t know, there is no perfect, right answer, and most certainly with the limited information we usually have, we have no right to conclude.  

We need more information!

How do we get more information….we ask more questions.  We look around, explore, remain open, try out different perspectives.

We seek to call ourselves out on what we believe.  It’s not easy, but it IS necessary.

We’ve become polarized because polarization creates a false sense of security, but security just the same.

Security is comforting, and comfort is our happy place.  

But comfort is also a place of stagnation.  If we want to grow, we need discomfort, we need to feel a little out of sorts.

We don’t always have to feel out of sorts, but we also don’t always want to feel comfortable, and worse, feel we are right and they are wrong.

Today, more than ever before, we must be more curious. We must start our conversation with better questions and a desire to better understand instead of telling others what we think or believe we know.

Double down on curiosity, and never stop seeking.

How often do you find yourself answering this question; “How are you doing?”

“Busy.”

Or how often does someone you’re reconnecting with say that as well?

Or maybe we say, “All good, busy, but good.”

It’s become the default response. No one tells you how they are doing, that would take too much time, and you wouldn’t care to hear it all either, right?

We ask the pleasantry question, “How are you doing?” because it ticks all the boxes, it says we care, it says we want to know about you, and it says hello all in one fell swoop.

But the truth is we don’t care, we don’t want to know about the person in this immediate conversation, and we want to most likely get to the point of the interaction.

Worse still is the fact that the person we are talking to says they’re busy because that’s a better response than, I’m down, I’m depressed, I’m tired, I’m burnt out, or I’m happy, I’m doing great, I’m excited. All of these statements kind of lead to a response from you, like further elaboration is required.

I’m busy kind of hits you in the face and says all at once, I’ve got a lot on my plate, I’m overwhelmed, and you need to be succinct and focused in your response to me. Don’t waste my time, and I won’t waste yours.

Still further challenging is the fact that it’s true. Most people these days are completely overwhelmed with work and trying to achieve the dream.

How many times have you gotten in an UBER in the last year and spoken to someone who is doing UBER as a third job during the day to make ends meet?

How often are you running into friends who have so many plates spinning, you can’t imagine how they keep them all in the air?

How many plates are you spinning?

Life today is frenetic, and on top of it, the social media gods have decided that if we are not busy enough, they will fill all our extra time with useless scrolling.

Even with all of that, our business has become a badge of honor. We default to this language because we don’t want people to think we aren’t busy. God forbid we would have it all together, not be busy, but somehow be successful in everyone else’s eyes by luck. Luck isn’t acceptable, it’s gotta be earned!

We think that being busy is a precursor to being successful. Success is defined sociologically by what you can accomplish, what you can get done, how much you can take on. Get after it, right!

As I’ve shared in the past, I like the Nightengale quote, “Success is the pursuit of a worthy ideal.”

It’s all about the intent, the expression, the connection to purpose, and the worth while effort. It’s not about how much effort, the intensity, or the occupation with it, it’s simply about pursuing in a way that allows me to feel it, own it, live it.

For me, the pursuit of a worthy ideal; challenging convention, creating change and inspiring others through the work and life I live is my success.

These days, when someone asks me how I am, I usually say; “My life is good, it’s full and it’s rich.”

I am content and joyful in my work, and I do have time to think, explore, and reach.

How can you be a better responder?

Most likely the solution will be found in your sense of purpose. Are you living the way you love, or the way you feel you have to?

A worthy question for all of us.

This week Canada turns 157 years old, and our friends down south will be celebrating their 248th Anniversary of Independence on July 4th. Usually, such events are celebrated with fanfare and fireworks, and most of the time, an appreciation for the long weekend.

Sometimes, with big dates, like any anniversary of importance (our centennial in 1967, or their bi-centennial in 1976) there is more lamenting on the state of the nation, the accomplishments, and the feelings toward bygone years.

For me, this year in particular, I want to reflect on what our nations are supposed to represent to the rest of the world, and what they seem to be losing daily.

Democracy, for all its fractures and fissures, still stands for the ideal of freedom of will and accomplishment.  The ideology that any person should have the opportunity to accomplish what they set out to achieve, and live a life they steward themselves.

It’s supposed to represent a place where diversity of opinion, and belief can reside as neighbors, collegially and safely.  Without a sense that sharing one’s belief or opinion might result in one’s harm or restraint.

It’s supposed to feel like one can travel and move about with relative ease, without any constraint other than those self-imposed by budget, time, or the constraints agreed upon civilly through means of a government built by the people, for the people.

In other words, we make our own rules and we live by those rules, and if we don’t like them, we use the political constructs built by our forefathers to change them.  We amend them, we create new ones, and we delete old, outdated ones.

This is the Kool-Aid I drank for most of my life, I guess it allowed me to feel comfortable that what we had made sense, that what we were doing was somehow better than them, whoever they were.

But throughout the last half of my life, since the early 90s, I’ve seen a slow and insidious degradation of all that I grew up with (however flawed) a slow burn of our flags, and what they represent.

Six significant elements have contributed to the destabilization of our democratic fabric in my estimation, and one more that is just beginning to make it all exponentially worse.

The first is the advent of 24-hour news in the mid-eighties and the politicization of that news through opinion pundits.  Ratings and greed began to shift the news from reporting and holding accountable, to defining what was happening through a curated perspective. 

Still more disturbing was the monopolization of media by a few media oligarchy who decided to politically bias the news to favor the corporations who would  spend millions upon millions of dollars on advertisements.  Soon the adoring pundits became all too comfortable with lying simply to make more money.

Cue the internet, which begins to take this reality and redefine it again. Now we have curated content on demand. Now, without us knowing it until it’s too late, we receive confirmation of biased opinions, and we get bespoke news and information to satisfy our beliefs. People get sucked into clickbait rabbit holes only exacerbated by the social media explosion that follows.

The shift in corporate greed instigated in the early 80s saw more and more corporations move their focus from high-quality products and services, manufacturing, and consideration for the workers (never perfect by any stretch, but better than now), to outsourcing manufacturing, downsizing employment, and focusing on shareholder gain. This was the oxygen for the fire that was burning the fabric of our flags.

Social media dropped jet fuel on the fire.  No one saw it coming.  No one could  even begin to contemplate what this new medium would mean.  It has done some good, but I’d have to say that for the most part, much of what it has done has been downgrading our social fabric. Most certainly it is reinventing the way our youth sees the world and we are only realizing how this change is truly affecting the next generation of adults and businesspeople.

These ingredients shifted our moral compass. No longer would one need to face their foe and speak their truth knowing there might be ramifications for their bullying or vitriol.  All the cowards who wanted to say something however true or false could now build literal empires and followings on the backs of followers who no longer received variable perspective, or actual truth.

Truth?! What is that really?

The cost of this cesspool of fallacy and immorality has been the slow insidious shift of our political leadership from people who sought to contribute through public service (yes, they had their flaws and foibles no doubt) and try to create a better set of circumstances for their children than they experienced growing up.  

Getting elected required money and alignment with the private sector, but not to the extent that it does today.  Today, the cost of getting elected can only be born of the private sector corporate conglomerates who choose their team and set the rules. Our leaders are owned and operated by those who seek profit over people.

The pandemic amplified this ugly mess, and made everything more evident.  It eroded the public trust in institutions, and it seemed that on a daily basis new fractures exposed themselves in public institutions we had trusted implicitly for so long.  Was it right for us to doubt, most certainly, but the level it has ascended to at this point renders these institutions dysfunctional and further exacerbates the end user, the public.

On a daily basis, everything seems normal.  Life goes on, and we get up each day and get it done, but there is this buzz in the air around us, constant and unnerving, that something is going to break.  I don’t know when or how, but something will break and what lies afterward is uncertain.

Cue the next great invention, AI.  We don’t really know where this giant experiment with reality will lead, but one thing is certain, there is much that will be different, some for the better, and some for the much worse.  The potential to take everything above and simply fabricate a truth, create a false reality, now that is an experiment with much possibility to go wrong.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”

― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark – 1995

On this Canada Day, I want to celebrate my country and those that I love, but I also find myself at a loss for how we got to where we are, and more difficult to contemplate is how we find our way to something better.

Not to leave you, the reader, with a sensation of bleakness, but I do think our way to something better is instigated by how we treat one another, and what we aspire towards.  

Let’s focus more on being better humans to one another each day. Let’s aspire to be better versions of ourselves.  Let’s de-emphasize our focus on money and wealth, and shift to a focus on the wealth of health, family, and community.  It’s not cliche, it’s common sense.

Let’s make a greater effort to inform ourselves through multiple sources, and embrace critical conversations and curiosity.  We must not become complacent, tribal, and protective of what we have.  We need to learn more about one another, recognize our differences, and celebrate our similarities.  We all want something better for ourselves and for our children.

Here’s to hope.