Modern Day

In our modern day, we are educating high school students for careers lasting into the 2070’s, yet we struggle to imagine 2020. The speed of change is forcing us to repeatedly realign our careers, strategies and daily lives. The increasing complexity to make things happen requires discovering and negotiating the common intersection of many interests, concepts, disciplines and constraints. Our evolving definitions of personal well-being means we need efficiency with our limited resources to “fit it all in”. We have to trust moving forward without all the answers knowing it will take multiple iterations to get it right. Our traditional education of math, science and language is as important as ever, yet we know it will not be enough in our modern day.

• CHANGE - When capital on Wall Street transfers in nanoseconds, work moves around the world in days, we no longer have years to reinvent ourselves or contemplate our dreams or big ideas. Not acting on our dreams can make us more vulnerable than acting. Delaying action reduces opportunities from good ideas that can now expire faster than a gallon of milk.

• COMPLEXITY - When knowledge is growing exponentially, change is daily, technology gets outdated quickly, and rules only get added; addressing complexity can’t wait for years of experience and wisdom.

• SYNCHRONY - When personal well-being includes family, relationships, career, purpose and meaning, accomplishment, lifestyle and personal achievement; the pursuit of a dream or big idea must be efficiently managed and synchonized within our lives without compromising our many competing interests.

• ITERATION - To continuously adapt to new understanding of realities, people and what works (failure). Often, this insight only surfaces as the result of experimentation or dream pursuits. Mastery of craft comes from trial and error, re-validating, resilience and adapting. For ongoing dreams, numerous iterations must continue on for them to endure.

Our modern day can make us feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. Yet we can choose to be vulnerable from something happening to us or from trying to make something happen. If you choose vulnerability from a dream pursuit, you may only be steps away from the start of love, joy, creativity, progress and making almost anything happen.