Iraj Abedian writes that we have a choice to make in how to approach the future in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, and looks at the impact it has had on our economy.
There are two sides to every reality. The left and the right; the rich and the poor; the past and the future; the angry - and the awakened. These are the forces that mould us and evolve us. They exist in opposites and they function in parallel. They are necessary.
And then, there are choices. The things we say, we do and we decide upon. Forces and choices work together, but they are not the same - and it's time we knew the difference.
As human beings, we are making choices every day. Some of us have chosen to become complacent in our observations of the pandemic world. Some of us choose to keep quiet, some of us choose to shout the odds at the television and not at the source. Many of us are activists, acting from a place of fear and anger. And then there are those of us who are choosing empathy and compassion as our "new normal", but stay so squarely in our lanes that we have created our own social divide.
The journey of evolution is about forces and choices; it is never smooth, and never defined by one event. We know this. What we also know is that human beings learn from two things broadly: our solutions and our mistakes. We either choose to work things out or we choose to make many mistakes - sometimes the same mistakes - and we hurt ourselves so much that we run out of options. This is where we get stuck.
Stuck is a choice
"Stuck" is a choice by the way. And so is destruction.
I've spent 30 years of my life actively involved with global institutions, international and local governments and influential corporates - and suffice to say in the year 2020 - there isn't any system or leadership right now that is fit for purpose. Governments that have spanned 25-75 years are still trying to regulate a modus operandi that has never evolved because they choose not to change - and without change there cannot be a future. As a result, our poorer communities become the victims of inflexible institutions.
We have reached a point in our human evolution - morally, spiritually and individually - where deep down we know that the old ways of yesterday will not sustain us going forward. But what are we doing about it? We're fearing it - and where there is fear there is anger, and where there is anger there is arrogance - and for far too long it is arrogance that has kept us looking up, not in.
While we're walking the line towards an effective future, we need to start accepting that change is not the enemy, our reaction to it is. The same goes for anger.
Anger is necessary. It is part of the four primary forces of evolution; it's how we use it to bring about positive change that will matter to our future. When we learn to honour our anger and channel our anger in response to the world, our internal world begins to awaken and heal, and our external world begins to repair itself and evolve. Our internal world plays a big role in how we are shaping our external world - as individuals, institutions and communities. Perhaps all this time there has only ever been two sides at play - the inside and the outside.
We're making mistakes
The mistake we're making is that we're looking up and out too much. We're seeking nirvana in the left or the right, and here's the fact: there is no nirvana on either side of the line - it happens in the balance. The future really depends on the treasures we choose to bring to the outside world, from inside of us.
FutureNEXT is here. It's our responsibility to learn how to work with the forces that move us, and the choices that improve us. We're being asked to recognise that this is a journey that requires force, choice and ignition or the future can never start. We're being asked to choose between a smarter functional future or a broken dysfunctional one; we're being called to pick between a humble opinion or an arrogant one. We're being asked to drop our crowns and lower our heads and start from the inside - for if we don't, we may miss the gems along the way.
- Dr Iraj Abedian is an economist and is the co-author of 'FutureNEXT' - from the provocative Future paperback series. Together with future-strategist and thought leader John Sanei, Abedian addresses some hard-hitting realities, possibilities and new normalities of our socio-economic future.
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