A Future of Optimism
The current state of the
global economy does not mix well with the resulting sense of
individual uncertainty in the lives of everyone on the planet.
The annoyance of reading about anomalies like million-dollar
bonuses or taxpayer bail-outs and threats of the loss of
control of mortgage and credit card payments is helping induce
a widespread sense of pessimism.
Sadly, pessimism is
apparently one of the food staples of the mass media. Even
though the size of newspapers seems to be shrinking
significantly as part of the economic turbulence we face,
there seems to be more and more space taken up by stories of
the death and dismemberment of individuals retirement plans,
store bankruptcies, the latest lay-off announcements, and
exposes of waste and excess. If left untreated, the blight
of pessimism spreads and does great harm to our hopes and
dreams.
An array of statistics which
AARP published should help us focus on the fact that the
future is a bright place to be anticipated with optimism,
challenge and opportunities for innovation.
For example, 100 years ago
infant mortality in the U.S. stood at a rate of about 10
percent. In other words, one in 10 babies died during or soon
after child birth. A hundred years later that figure is at
about two-thirds of 1 percent. Life expectancy was about 40
years of age for men and 49 for women whereas it is about 76
and over 80 years, respectively, today. Advancements in
medicine lead to the prospect that, if people pay attention
and accept personal responsibility for their own futures, life
expectancy could increase by half again. Who among us would
not want to be able to attend the college graduation of a
great-great grandchild? That unimagined prospect is now within
our grasp.
The number one cause of
death in this country 100 years ago was pneumonia and
influenza. Today influenza is number eight on the list but is
often particularly problematic for people with other health
conditions.
What is different today is
the presence of conditions such as diabetes on the top killer
list which never made it to the list 100 years ago. Diabetes
is sometimes a disease of lifestyle. It can relate to obesity
and the difficulty of accepting personal responsibility for
how much time we should spend exercising, eating better, not
smoking and generally being more engaged with each other.
Rather, we watch TV and net surf from the comfort of our
La-Z-Boys.
Another sign of the amazing
changes in our lives is that 100 years ago, 95 percent of all
births occurred at home, whereas even 50 years later about
that same percentage of births occurred in far better equipped
hospitals.
If amazing changes in our
past history are indicators of the future, we have a great
many reasons to look ahead with optimism to a world of
opportunities which we cannot even dream of today.
The keys to realizing the
amazing possibilities ahead rest in not being afraid to dream
about what the future could be like, acting now to reduce risk
and taking steps to realize the possibilities and being
personally accountable for our own lives and the lives of
people we care about.
If we do these things, our
attitudes and our actions will emerge out of pessimism, and
our communities will be more engaged to be more productive. We
will not only escape the current difficulties sooner, but we
will lessen the chances of even greater trouble ahead.
Phil Rosenberg The HR
Doctor http://www.hrdr.net/
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