You Can Save The World.
(yes, you!)
When I look at the news, it’s hard to believe that we live in a period where human beings have never been so healthy, lived so long, or been so well educated.
On social media, you would be forgiven for thinking that there is a crime syndicate systematically murdering celebrities, they seem to die so often.
In both cases, the truth is much different from the perception. Yet in both cases, we act as if the stimulus, the information is true, real and accurate. It effects our mood, our mental states, our physical well-being.
The impact of these stories on us is that powerful.
And yet, when someone says, if you change the story and believe something else, you will experience a different kind of life and get different outcomes, we resist it.
Whether what you choose to think or believe is true or not is irrelevant. Once you believe it, your behaviour responds to the stimulus like it is a fact.
If you think you can do something or you think you can’t, you will be right. But if you start to do something, you will change. You will learn, your skills will improve, your point of view will shift and suddenly, something else is possible than was possible yesterday.
You can act on what you imagine in very concrete ways which have the result of bring what is imagined into the real world. This has been called Magic, the secret, lies and many other names. What it is, is creativity.
Creativity is not art or invention or innovation. These are the products of creative endeavour. Creativity is also not song, dance, poetry or calculus. Those are the skills and tools required. Creativity is the ability to synthesise different answers from known information.
But it doesn’t stop there. Everyone has ideas, not everyone changes their experience of reality as a result. That requires action. Consistent, goal oriented, incremental action.
Human beings are where they are today because they are creative and we have been moving forward in tiny increments since the dawn of our existence. When we had nothing and knew nothing, those increments were infinitesimal and slow. Now, when we know so much and have so many resources, knowledge, experience, skills and tools, the rate of change is unmeasurable.
Right now, it looks like we have driven ourselves into a cul-de-sac of impending doom. And we might well have. But if you consider the chances of intelligent life sprouting on this rock, you must concede that there is also the chance that we’ll imagine our way out of this situation as well.
I believe we can.
But to do that, more of us need to drop this charade of ‘not being creative’ and get on with dreaming up more and more ideas of how the world can be a better place and to start acting on as many of them as possible.
If not us, who?
If not now, when?
It’s not about how good you are at anything, it’s about whether you are doing it or not.
So go on, get out there and be more creative
Save the world
You superhero you!
