A funny thing about periods in history. They get their names afterward. Looking back.
I don’t think Leonardo DaVinci sat around saying, “Gee whiz, I am contributing to the Renaissance.” I am just guessing here, but something tells me, the guys drawing pictures of animals in caves did not have a clue about The Stone Age either.
So here we are. What in the world would you call THIS time we are living in? The Age of Entitlement? “Hey, I’m 16. So where’s my car?” Or, “I lost my job, but I can take the next year to find another one because I’ll get a check in the mail anyway, from Uncle Sam.”
Maybe this time could be called the era of…..
The Great Contention. No question about this one. We seem to be spinning into a world, more and more polarized. More and more divided. More us and them. All the time. Instead of coming of age…..it seems we are coming undone. We seem to be ready to strangle one another. Flipping someone off appears to be winning out over other friendly gestures, like holding open a door or saying “Have a nice day” to strangers.
My vote would be to flip this venomous era on its head and turn it into The Great Collaboration—where we could all come together—-honoring our differences as a way to inform new thoughts and positive, sustainable solutions that make the world a better place.
What would it take to create a world we are proud of? One that would move us, collectively, into a new powerfully positive and purposeful age—-one that could bring us together in shared love and respect for humanity. One that we could all look back on, many years from now, when we are ready to name THIS era, and proudly say...“I was part of that.”
