The world’s people are in peril. We no doubt live in a noisy, numb, narcissistic age. The talents and attentions of the majority are not invested in personal mastery and social responsibility but squandered on games, voyeurism, and base sensationalism. We have recklessly abandoned what truly matters – the striving to be great as individuals and as a society – for the glamour and thrill of speed, convenience, and vain expression, in a kind of humanity-wide midlife crisis.
Gone are the big visions; here are the quick wins and the sure things. Effort has lost out to entitlement. In the transition to our age of self-adoration and conceit, the page turned long ago on the dreams to rise as a people. Greatness is so rarely sought, and generation after generation fails to hold the line of human goodness and advancement. Why? Because most people don’t want to hold themselves or others to a higher standard, because the former requires discipline and the latter invites conflict.
And so they excuse their poor behaviour and don’t call out social wrongs. They no longer firmly expect themselves or others to act with virtue, compassion, excellence, or wisdom. They look away when their bosses do something wrong. They don’t tell their children to improve their behaviour because they don’t want to be too controlling. They can’t tell the team to shape up because they don’t want to appear bossy.
Without more people deciding to serve as role models and leaders, our society has become a suffering case of the silent and bland leading the silent and bland.
There is a confused complacency – everyone knows there is more for us, but it’s just too much trouble to organise ourselves to chase it. It is easier to indulge in our comforts, our profits, our easygoing ways. Such habits have reduced our individual greatness and led to a world-wide failure in leadership. This is evident when we see an apathetic populace, unjustifiable poverty, unconscionable greed, and a world ravaged and booby-trapped by war.
If we continue on this path, history will not be kind to us, and a cheated destiny will exact its revenge.
Is there not a person among us who does not think that we can do better if we try? The naysayers will tell us nothing can be done. They say that the world is going to hell; it is unrecoverable. They imagine that human-kind is simply too sad and selfish to be able to right its wrongs. But is this true?
Perhaps some people are indeed so buried in their life’s challenges that they can hardly inspire themselves, let alone inspire others. But it is also true that there are some people who are doing their damnedest to improve the world. These people wake each day and fight hard to have a better tomorrow, actively seek learning and challenge in order to grow and contribute, and deeply care about their integrity and the character of their children and communities.
If the majority of the world’s populace didn’t work hard, care for one another, or carry the bright flame of goodness within their souls, then this earth would have perished long ago. Having mastered the atom and the machinery of death that is modern warfare, the mere fact that we are alive now reveals a vast preference toward life and virtue.
And now we are at a fascinating place where billions of us so desperately want the world to improve, and we want something to give to, to believe in, to fight for. We are looking forward to contributing our creativity and sweat and fire to something that matters, to something that improves our lives and the lives of others. We are now tired of waiting. So let us lead.
Brendan Burchard, The Motivation Manifesto
