Challenges we face
The challenges we face, and there are many, seem to concentrate on a number of key area. For example, how we have it seems, at least in the current era, appeared to have lost our sense of compassion for ‘the other’, or our capacity for empathy towards another.
Of course, it is true that there is countless acts of compassion and feelings of empathy every second of every hour of every day in every household in every hamlet, village, town and city on the planet. Equally, there is carnage, chaos, death and destruction in the same places of every minute of every day. It often feels that we, as a species have lost touch with what is a deep seated, ingrained and innate ability to care for one another.
Not only is there a need for greater acts of compassion or the extension of empathy between people, but one of the most pressing challenges we also face is the ability to decipher between ‘Fake News’ and quality journalism. It’s no coincidence that in an era where the internet and social media in particular has provided many outlets for opinion and commentary outside of the traditional and what would be considered mainstream media, the level of antagonism and divisive discourse between people has risen whilst compassion towards one another has, at least on the face of it, decreased.
More broadly, the answer to how we make a dent in ‘the system’, deal with ‘the invisible hand,’ interfere in or disrupt ‘the machine,’ ensure greater levels of human contact against a tidal wave of digital dis-connection, or merely resist the temptation to respond and react to every emotive image and comment posted on social media, still lies within us.
What might those answers be? Maybe the creation of an education system that prepares children and young people for thinking rather than merely for remembering. Perhaps ensuring quality well paid work in the future that hasn’t already been (or presumably won’t be) mopped up by automation? Might it be preparing our children for participating in and engaging with society rather that protecting them from every perceived risk and stressor outside the home? Or, more simply, encouraging a better use of language as opposed to what seems to be the current trend of ‘weaponising’ it?
We live in an era of increasing populism, particularly on the back of the re-emergence of the ‘strongman’ or ‘hard man’ leader, rising sea-levels and global temperature, an increasing global (not to mention aging) population, a non-too subtle cyber-surveillance slowly seeping into our everyday lives, widespread political rage, and a growth in conspiracy theories to name but a few. Well, to name but many actually!
This broad and challenging context does however offer us an opportunity, one whereby we can as individuals, make resolution to restore to the fore and common parlance, many of the virtues that have taken a battering in recent times. Not only compassion and empathy, but trust, patience, dialogue, justice, truth and critical thinking among others. We need to make time reflect upon our values, our beliefs, our ideals and contrast them against our behaviour and our attitude.
Every day the world turns - the sun still rises and sets. Of course, it is a world that turns but with a burden that weighs heavily on the shoulders of its citizens. A minority are in a more fortunate position to meet those challenges head on, and to help shape, and mould their own outcomes, rather than the collective outcomes shared by the majority who have little influence over them.
If all of us take small steps, we create our own form of momentum and if we can use that momentum generated to build trust again in our institutions by caring more and taking the right decisions, it can spur us to greater levels of empathy, compassion, truth, justice and more.
The various challenges we face should motivate us to think long-term rather than just short-termism, which seems to be pervasive in almost every facet of life in the modern era. Dictatorships aside, I cannot think of any nation on Earth right now with a long-term plan for anything that goes beyond four to five years, which of course is the approximate shelf life of a parliament, or a president, or any other authority tasked with governing.
I’m not suggesting any single parliament should last ten-fifteen years or more but rather than new manifestos every whip-about, how about an agreed 20 year plan that no matter who is in power they are tasked with delivering it. That might go some way to addressing some of the more pressing challenges in front of us.
