America needs to embrace a spirit of exploration again.
As a culture, we have been settled for far too long and the damage can be seen everywhere you look.
People are dissatisfied… There’s a constant, discordant hum everywhere you go. Can you hear it?
“I hate my job.”
“I’m bored with my life.”
“I want a better body.”
“I’m broke.”
Nothing less than a major paradigm shift and a willingness to do what’s necessary to implement it will change the tune of this tired old song. It is my opinion that this new paradigm should be one of exploration, the likes of which America hasn’t seen in several decades.
As part of this new spirit, we need to re-think how we see ourselves being successful and earning money. This will require shedding old notions of the way things should be and creating new ways that are centered in a spirit of giving rather than constantly consuming. It will require downsizing our footprint on the planet and learning to find meaning from doing things for others rather than taking only for ourselves.
Essentially, practicing what Seth Godin so appropriately names “The Gift Culture.”
Those who embrace the changes that are happening and accept that life as we’ve known it will never be the same are the ones who will know tremendous success and personal satisfaction for years to come.
Those who go into survival mode and hide from the changes will eventually emerge into a world they no longer recognize and will be at a tremendous disadvantage because they are so far behind the ones who moved forward. (That’s a big shout out to you in charge of GM, Chrysler, and Ford, just as a starting point. Wake up, guys. Your ride is over.)
Before I became a rafting guide in Alaska, I had been on two, perhaps three rafting trips in my life. And even though I grew up around water and understood the basic principals of boating, rafting a glacial-fed river with class 4 rapids was new to me that first summer I went to the Kenai. My teacher was an experienced river guide, and helped me understand very quickly that the secret to rafting has to do with working with the river rather than against it. “You don’t have to do nearly as much as you think you do in terms of brute strength to successfully reach your destination. Learn how to read the river, maneuver the raft accordingly, and enjoy the ride.”
Moving with the current is a whole lot easier than fighting to get upstream. The economic currents right now are fierce and bewildering and have billions worldwide worried, scared, and paralyzed. While I am not minimizing the severity of the current economic situation, I am suggesting that learning to read the new river and work with its currents will free us from our fears and paralysis and move us in a direction of hope and promise. To let go of old paradigms and create new ones. To become explorers again.
I wrote in a previous post that middle-class America has become too soft in the last couple of decades. Credit access and home equity were too easy to get and spurred massive consumerism without immediate consequences the likes of which had never been seen.
Well, we are now paying the price of our ways on a national and global level, and change has got to come in a hurry.
Currently, the spirit of exploration on a national level doesn’t exist. Too many people want things to come easy. They don’t want to pay the price to get what they see promoted through the media. Spiritual holes are filled with stuff. Suburbs are wastelands suffocating from McMansions and Big Box stores and gas-guzzling SUVs. Communities have all but disappeared and many residents don’t know any of their neighbors. Our immediate worlds have become insular and emotionally separated from human connection which in turns feeds the need so many have to consume as a means of filling in the blanks.
It’s time to dig deep down inside ourselves and pull out that pioneering spirit again, just as our ancestors did and look at the world as one full of new possibilities rather than one of massive loss and depleted 401Ks and greedy corporate leaders whining for a share of the bailout package.
It’s time to take charge of our own lives again.
Mary Lou ~ I LOVE this post. So well written and so right on!
I especially love the analogy you made with rafting…. “learning to read the new river and work with its currents will free us from our fears and paralysis and move us in a direction of hope and promise. To let go of old paradigms and create new ones. To become explorers again.”
Cheers to exploration and owning our lives!
Thank you for your thoughtful words, Beth! Exploration is a cornerstone of progress and growth, yet so many of our institutions and systems squash the spirit of exploration at a young age (have you read Linchpin yet? Seth Godin really hammers home this point!). Thankfully, we spirited souls can forge a path for ourselves and others through our work as entrepreneurs. How lucky we are! 🙂