Softening a World
I was having a conversation the other day with a friend who brought to my attention the numerous fears that she had about protecting her children from the world we live in today. The discussion ensued as we volleyed the ideas that we had to toughen up our children to face the cruel,cold and unbending world that we live in. Sure, our world is tough. Her fears are totally justified. The prior generation messed it up. Our current generation ( my generation of 40 somethings) plundered it with promises of lives of ease and luxury only to be handed a world of fast pace, never ending tasks and hopeful goals that are sometimes slightly beyond our hand held out reach. The future generation is going to inherit a waste land of broken dreams, foretold nightmares and doomsday like commitments. Or are they?
The thought that our children need to prepare for what lies ahead is a valid one. Most of my generation has been under the same guise and idea that we all live in a tough harsh planet and in order to survive we have to have even tougher skin. Yet I would propose that most of these thoughts come from fears from our parents. They and their parents went through numerous world wars, depressed economies, baby booming periods and various global shifts in culture, tolerance and prejudice. Economies boomed, dictators came tumbling down only to rise again, with massive environmental changes. All bad? NO. Certainly not. Change is bound to happen. Energy is transformed. Cyclical economies, mindsets and paradigms all keep us going, much like the moon’s cyclical influence on our tides and our moods.
Emotional and generational inheritance of fears have unconsciously metamorphosed into realities. Worries that “you won’t get a job if you don’t go to college” still translate into true unemployment. Concerns that “you must stay away from different people as they might not be friendly” translates into isolation and ignorance. The list is endless, as is the list of human fears and excuses. We are able to metabolize our thoughts into time space realities. We breed a generation of lost, confused, unmotivated beings who will struggle to survive instead of living on purpose transformative conscious lives.
I have a lot of faith in this new generation. They have the total unadulterated strength to transform our world for the better. I am not thinking that we have to harden them against the world, in fact just the contrary, I think that we have to soften the world to handle them. These little tigers are being born with amazing gifts. Abilities of empathy. Abilities of connection. Abilities of love. Abilities that have been suppressed in us currently for the most part by our riddled pasts. Our generational parenting has led us down the path of tried and true destruction with our own unbalanced and irrational fears of the unknown.
Their gifts and talents will be able to enhance, better and reshape our planet so quickly that we may one day call this magic. Ridiculous ramblings of a delusional and dissolutioned hopeful? No, not really. More like predictions of a seer into the hearts and minds of a generation with more power than this earth has ever remembered.
If we can only break them free of the brain washing of social media, television, and commercialization of every entertainer and movie sensation, we may be able to breathe life into our dreams for them. With every child glued to a digital module and plugged in with headphones and reward points for every stimulation that they experience we are certainly doomed. With every child that looks up from the easily accessed electronic device, sees someone and connects to them without fear, our odds of prolonging our humanity goes up. With each sparkle of fearless steps forward, our children improve the chances of preserving a civilization. With each unconditional interaction a child has in a world with self imposed media directed limitations, we have a glimmer of the limitless possibilities coming true.
Do I fear for how my kids are going to handle the world? NO !
I fear for how the world is going to handle them when I unleash them into it.
