A beautiful tomorrow

My 14-year old daughter asked me the other day about my opinion regarding Trump. I gave her the analogy of a huge spot on the nose: It makes you a bit more ugly, and if you're trying to fight it by squeezing it, there's a small but real chance of getting blood poisoning and dying. But the spot is not the main problem. The whole body is sick – the spot is only a sign telling you that something ain't right.

This is the world today: a disturbing increase of right-wing politics, more and higher walls on the land and in the mind, ever greater gaps between rich and poor, more division, more hatred, more fear. Yet none of these are the causes for the drama we're in, they're all symptoms. Symptoms of a sick society.

These days it's very easy to paint a grim and apocalyptic picture of our future. Even without taking into account all the environmental issues, there are plenty more dark colours available. Here's my favourite one at the moment: Due to automation and digitalisation half of all jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. Just imagine our current situation with unemployment rates of 40-50%! Unfortunately this is neither science fiction nor overly pessimistic thinking, it's exactly the reality which we're heading towards. Take a moment and really think about what this means... The problems we're facing today might be just the warm up for a dreadful nightmare that is unfolding right in front of our eyes.

To avoid this rather painful and depressive scenario, ie to avoid getting more and more ugly spots, three things need to happen:

1) We need to identify the real causes for our sick society. I don't have all the answers but I'd say that greed, excessive pride and lack of empathy are some of the things that got us into this mess. In other words: We are a bunch of very selfish beings who love competing and consuming and we've forgotten to care – for each other and for the planet we live on. So instead of looking for the great evil scapegoat OUT THERE, each one of us must look IN HERE and remedy the dark forces that lie within. You, me, everyone! Because world peace starts with a peaceful home.

2) We need to become visionaries and paint bright and colourful pictures of the future we want to live in. This is really important because it's so easy to imagine that everything will end in a horrible way – and because it's so easy, it's so often done. Yes, it's quite possible that it will get very nasty on our little rock, but it's not the only option. There is so much human potential to do good, we just have to make it visible. Hence we need to create visions of a beautiful tomorrow.

3) We need to start today. Because...

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