Compelling Reasons For DreamMakers

Now more than ever we need to imagine our future - envision the world we want to create for our children, our future generations, and for ourselves.  The changes we have experienced over the last several decades: environmentally, technologically, economically, politically and socially, have shaken our sense of reality. The sea of change we are living in has lead many of us to ask some crucial questions: “What’s important in life? What values do we need to embrace and build into our future? What kinds of organizations, institutions, communities, and lives do we want create?” People are struggling with these questions all over our world and in all sectors of society. There seems to be a growing desire to live with a sense of purpose - to be deliberate about how we shape our lives. We are beginning to understand that a whole new level of accountability and responsibility is required of all of us.

When I was growing up I thought that everything had already been discovered or invented. I used to marvel and wonder about what it must have been like to be a pioneer, a great inventor or a great explorer. Much to my surprise, I’m finding out – not by trekking into the wilderness or flying into space, but simply by watching our world transform into something it has never been before.

The late management guru, Peter Drucker describes our era as “The Great Divide”.  In his book, Post Capitalist Society as He writes:

“Every few years in western history there occurs a sharp transformation. We cross what I call a divide. Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself - its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is new world. And people born then cannot even imagine the world in which their grandparents lived and into which their own parents were born. We are currently living through such a transformation…”

With the acceleration of change and the explosion of technological developments, not only will our children experience a whole new world, but we are witnessing this new world unfold before our eyes, at an astounding speed. And it is not just occurring in western society it is happening everywhere. Change has come so rapid, so unpredictable, and so pervasive that most of the systems, processes, structures, and solutions of the past just don’t work today. No organization, community, institution or person can avoid having to grapple with deep, unpredictable, fundamental change. Breakthroughs in science, medicine, the new physics, and the latest brain research are challenging us to question the basic assumptions by which we’ve built our society and organizations. The political environment around the world is illuminating a cry for change - a cry for freedom from the past. 

I believe the old archetypes are dying and we have yet replaced them. This is creating chaos, confusion, fear and even a feeling of hopelessness. Anthropologist George Land describes our era as a “Breakpoint” in his book Breakpoint and Beyond. Like many futurists, he believes that we are experiencing a fundamental shift in our world. In recent history there has been a plethora of books that talk about our era of phenomenal change: The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman; The Necessary Revolution by Peter Senge, Here comes Everybody by Clay Shirk; by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, to name a few. 

Although it looks and feels like these changes came overnight, If we step back and reflect, they have been developing for a very long time. Like the fissures that form under the waterline of an iceberg, the cracks in our world have been multiplying and deepening for thousands of years. Our era of globalism, economic and political crises, shrinking recourses and greed has exposed the weak foundation on which many of our institutions, organizations and our communities were built. Our greatest error may be that we believed the assumptions on which we built our lives were sound and strong enough to take us into the future. We were wrong. That weak foundation is now crumbling beneath the weight of our erroneous beliefs and our poor decisions. 

A friend of mine has describes our era - “It’s like the past has relinquished its hold on the future.”  There are no easy answers, no blueprints, no prescriptions, no gurus or great leaders to save us. In this new emerging world, we are the inventors, the pioneers of our time. The responsibility is ours - each and every one of us. How the world unfolds will depend on how we see and think about our world, moment by moment. The decisions we make now are powerfully shaping our future.  We have to define the world we want and we have to learn how to be in this new world together. It is time for us to find the courage to move forward - to rethink everything; how we live, how we relate, how we work and how we learn. Many people are seeking a new way of living and being together. If we honestly look at the world we have created, we cannot help but be moved to change and improve it. 

In my view of life, what we are undergoing is a natural part of the metamorphosis process. But like any transformation we decide on the outcome. The collective vision and values we create and pursue for ourselves and our world will determine if we blossom or wilt. The key, as my dear friend Peter Senge puts it - is for us to find the courage to  “Tell the truth about current reality”, (The Fifth Discipline).


One point of view about current realities to come…

May all your beautiful hopes and dreams come true!

Michele 

Transformation Catalyst

www.dreammakers.org

michelemariehunt@gmail.com