Today, God help us, we start another political convention week. This thought by Seth Godin came over the transom just now. It's a nice antidote to the comments of a Facebook poster I encountered last night, who explained that the reason she attacked others like a crazed fishwife for questioning her premises was because one of them had been rude to her, so the only thing for it was to be worse in return.
What have we become (and what are we becoming?)
Every day, we change. We move (slowly) toward the person we'll end up being.
Not just us, but our organizations. Our political systems. Our culture.
Are you more generous than the you of five or ten years ago? More confident? More willing to explore?
Have you become more brittle? Selfish? Afraid?
Grumpy and bitter isn't a place we begin. It's a place we end up.
Do we intentionally choose the optimistic path? Are we eagerly more open to change and possibility?
Every day we make the hard decisions that build a culture, an organization, a life.
Since yesterday, since last week, since you were twelve, have you been making deposits or withdrawals from the circles of supporters around you?
People don't become selfish, hateful and afraid all at once. They do it gradually.
When we see the dystopian worlds depicted in movies and books, are we closer to those outcomes than a generation ago? Do we find ourselves taking actions that make our conversations more considered, our arguments more informed, our engagements more civil? Or precisely the opposite, because it's easier?
Your brand, your company, your community: it has so much, is it still playing the short game?
When your great-grandfather arrives by time machine, what will you show him? What have you built, what are you building? When your great-grandchildren remember the choices we made, at a moment when we actually had a choice, what will they remember?
We are always becoming, and we can always make the choice to start becoming something else, if we care.
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