Scratch the surface and I think we’re at a real juncture in our humanity. After a post-war era that rather jarringly required forging of more common pursuits, we are fraying. At our intersection, we either spiral out of control, or we push ourselves back from steep edges to navigate refreshed paths.

The memory of major conflict like World War II grows ever more distant as those who experienced it are quickly leaving us. We are in-filling with “me now” attitudes, a sense of entitlement, and online selfies. Our “community” is more often Facebook than the names, handshakes, and good will that can be forged among real neighbours. More perversely, social media anonymity empowers us to sling rocks we would never imagine throwing at someone we are standing face to face with.

Established democracies are voting at fractions of our total population when those in many nations of the world die for the right to vote. In the US a top of mind word is: gridlock. More generally across many nations, polling of trust in public institutions is at an all-time low(4). Our negative attitude toward governance is driving out the talent we need to enable its performance. When I ask people in workshops to raise their hand if they recommend that their younger family members pursue careers in governance, a hand is never raised. How far we have moved away from the words of President Woodrow Wilson – and the respect for those who choose to govern – in only two generations:

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more simply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

Absolving our responsibility to participate in democracy and governance makes us complicit in its struggle. We are getting what we deserve.

Add to the mix the world of exponential change we live in. Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns suggests we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress(5). I don’t think it is change that most people fear – it is pace of change. Reality for us is that thanks to our brilliance we aren’t going to put the innovation genie back in the bottle.

Into the vacuum fear has stepped, along with those rabid voices choosing to exploit it in the absence of people of character and new vision willing to push back or inject fresh new ideas.

In the dynamic tension between self-interest and common interest we are sliding toward self-interest. And while our instinctive human desire is to belong to something, in our fear we are defaulting to things we know better – which is typically smaller and more tribal than the more borderless world we have built via innovation, globalization, travel, and immigration. Globalization has contributed to pulling 1 BILLION people out of poverty in India and China since 1980(6), but our natural inclination is to concern ourselves with our own sandbox without recognizing the benefit of a global world that is more equal.

Sometimes it’s easier to break the status quo in anger, like BREXIT. More often than not it’s easier to maintain the status quo by avoiding new realities or clinging to belief that the past is better than the future. Both forces share a common sentiment: when we don’t know the future, we fight for what we know. We go back to older, artificial boundaries and roots and habits as if it’s soup or a good warm blanket in a storm. We re-build castles housing our clans to try to keep out others not like us. The Statue of Liberty’s welcome of the tired and huddled masses suddenly has conditions.

From there, it’s another small spiral down to become insensitive, intolerant, and to close our hearts and minds. When optimism relents in favour of pessimism – when we fear the future – we become vulnerable. We start to believe in the cult of personality to rescue us (e.g. current US Presidential politics). And when they play to our fears we move down a slippery slope that history has concluded doesn’t end well….which is another small spiral down to outright conflict.

Conflict is always an Us vs Them. It’s never about potential for compromise where both parties get 80% of what they want. We fight for the 100% we want, and someone else has to lose. In our current attitude we have sown seeds for conflict from terrorism to war.

What if there was only one Us? Perhaps we will never know, but I want to believe in the value of building bridges between us, as opposed to erecting walls. When we don’t interact, share, trade, collaborate, or seek to understand, we set the stage for conflict. Why are we not at least learning from our history? The frailty of humanity is that we find it easier to stand apart than forge paths together. If we should have learned anything, it’s that there should be no limit to the size of the tent under which we can fit “family.”

How do we get out of the pickle?

I love something 13 Ways President Doug Griffiths says: “The difference between crisis and opportunity is perspective.”

In that spirit, here are some simple thoughts:

• Be positive. It’s a light switch. Opt to turn on belief in better.
• Give a damn about things beyond self.
• Vote.
• Give governance the benefit of the doubt. Nothing good will ever happen if our set point is to disparage it.
• Give rather than take.
• Show gratitude.
• Stop blaming others for the world’s woes. Be the change you want to see in the words of Gandhi.
• Get an education and never stop learning or being curious. An open mind is open to the world.
• Ask yourself what your positive legacy will be and get busy working on it.
• Love unconditionally – ALL people. If you choose love, our differences of colour, sexual orientation, gender, and nationality melt away.
• Recognize that systems and governance are helpful to us – as they are to the ants, the birds, and the bees.
• Accept change as a given and learn to see it as opportunity.
• Be brave. Raise your voice against the forces of intolerance, anger, hate, and violence.
• Invest time and effort in your community – your real one not the online ones.
• Assume personal accountability for the actions of our government. We are investors in it.
• Consider whether it’s you who could be a real leader who believes in better to step forward, vs. let posers who choose to exploit fear rule the roost.
• Act out of belief that in our collective hearts, good wins over evil

I don’t believe in Robert Frost’s observation that “good fences make good neighbours.” I’m also not naïve enough to think that going into a hug off balance is a good thing. Connectivity between people and place takes thoughtful consideration. But I do fundamentally think that the only way out of our predicament is to create conditions for the bridge builders to shout louder than those who want to build walls.

Together is hard. Anyone who is married can attest. It takes work, investment, perseverance, and trust. And sometimes it takes blind faith. I love a Rotary saying I saw on Facebook recently: “In each of us there is a little of all of us.” E pluribus unum is prominent on the Seal of the United States. Translated, it means “out of many, one.” I envision a world that has reminded itself of the power of those words. WE have the power, when we take individual responsibility to nurture the health of the whole. There’s something greater than “Me”. It’s “Us.”

(1)http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/nature/q0237.shtml

(2)http://www.medicaldaily.com/married-vs-single-what-science-says-better-your-health-327878

(3)http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/nature/q0237.shtml

(4)e.g. https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3685/Politicians-are-still-trusted-less-than-estate-agents-journalists-and-bankers.aspx

(5)http://www.businessinsider.com/ray-kurzweil-law-of-accelerating-returns-2015-5

(6)http://fusion.net/story/306404/global-poverty-rates-plummeting/?utm_source=emailshare&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=socialshare&utm_content=theme_bottom_mobile