We Hold Limitless Potential for Betterment

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Since my earliest days, I have seen the great potential that people and communities hold for betterment. That's probably why I grabbed on to Theilhard de Chardin's idea that we are continuously evolving towards a greater good. I believe those words, and we see science proving those words today with Pinker's research as one example.

The understanding that greater good, like a magnet, is leading us forward as a people doesn't mean that there will not be bad times or challenging situations, but instead means that together we are inching our way ahead of our old time primitive selves to a more complete, loving, and better existence.

I have noticed the power of this belief in my own life and the lives of others--I know it's best to reflect on the past in order to take with us past beliefs, acts, and objects that have value, and with that knowledge move onto the future with each other by using our creativity, imagination, collaboration, and communication to make better.

The actions of making better are dynamic actions and a wonderful way of being, to make better is to use our abilities to observe, debate, create, test, reflect, and revise. This is a dynamic process that is exciting, exhilarating, and valuable to our own lives and the lives of others. There is great positive power in this kind of effort.

While I wish I could snap my fingers and the problems of the world would disappear, I know that this will never be true since the work of betterment is a necessary part of the process, the part that brings us together, challenges us, and betters us as individuals. There will always be problems to solve, and it is in how we solve those problems that propels our lives forward in ways that matter.

So while I see this amazing and limitless potential for better, I realize that my sight is far stronger than my abilities to make those changes. Yet to write only about what I see without also engaging in the change process limits my view so I think it's best to imagine as much as I can and then choose a few areas were I'll work for visible change and betterment.

In seeing big and writing about it, I hope to inspire others to think about my ideas, and better, create and share their own vision. Part of the process of betterment is thinking big and sharing those ideas. To share a wild and wonderful idea on Twitter is to invite immediate curation and to possibly give that idea flight. I found it very interesting that often those who solve big problems are people who don't work in the field where the problem exists. This happens because outsiders are able to think about the problem with new eyes, connections, greater creativity. Jobs talked about this creativity too noting that creativity grows from the synthesis of many broad experiences rather than from the narrow repetition of sameness.

So I will continue to devote time and energy into my pastime of creating, reading about, synthesizing, sharing, and curating ideas.

And I'll also engage in choosing a few of those ideas to forward with greater effort and resolve. I will choose ideas mostly from my professional field of education or my personal devotion, family.

We are a world of limitless potential for betterment. What stymies this betterment most is our often too closed, unimaginative mindsets that lack creativity, positivity, and a willingness to entertain people, places, circumstances, and ideas different from our own. Like a concrete wall, a closed mindset blocks innovation and positive growth. Creativity, imagination, positivity, and inclusion open our minds and makes us ready for the needed share, debate, reflection, and revision that brings us forward as a people and planet. We can always do better, and that betterment empowers who we are, where we are going, and what we will be.