Preventing A Disaster–Or Preparing To Survive One

* A fictional musing somewhat continued from "Divide and Conquer" originally posted in August of 2012, and “Financial Crisis”, originally posted in March of 2008 and inspired after conversations with former senior advisors to multiple Presidents of the United States and senior officers in the US Military. *

In a darkened room lit only by the glare of a collection of large monitors on one wall, two men sat in silence as the flickering images provided an update regarding the state of the planet known as Terra.

And what a tale the monitors told.

Global warming continuing unabated while people argued over whether it was manmade or a natural part of the planet’s cyclical nature.  They argued over prevention when survival would be a better subject for discussion.  Others found a way to profit from promoting panic and fear without providing any solutions.

Wars percolating amongst a species that prided itself on being at its pinnacle in the areas of knowledge, understanding and peace.

Structured religions that didn’t see how they hypocritically violated every precept outlined in their own holy texts as they implored the devout to follow them.

New diseases constantly cropping up with the solution being to create products that solved that problem while creating three new problems instead of eliminating the root cause of the disease in the first place.

Poverty and hunger in a world that discards as trash, more than the destitute need to lift them out of their condition.

Government agencies around the planet whose laws are so self-contradictory to the principles that the respective countries were founded upon and whose spending habits would be decried as unsustainable and suicidal if any business or individual adopted similar practices.

And a planet hell-bent on shouting and screaming at each other instead of recognizing that respectful collaboration and dialogue provided the solution to every problem that Terra faced.

It was all good, proceeding exactly as planned.

Almost.

The first of the two men spoke softly, not taking his eyes off the monitors.

“How long do you think this charade can continue before the Terrans figure out what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”, replied his colleague.

The first man continued. “How long do you think it will be before the Terrans realize that their governments around the planet have no ability to solve the problems in the world and then discover that their governments are not only not trying to solve the problems but in fact are intentionally allowing them to happen?”

His colleague nodded silently but said nothing, motioning for the first man to continue his line-of-thought.

“After all”, said the first man, “Our plans will not be brought to fruition if Terrans discover that their governments exist to placate them, keep them calm and keep them so off-balance that they don’t have time to think.  In fact, the sole role their governments fill is the role of positive public relations – “eat, drink and be happy while we solve all your problems”.  In addition, our strategy to use consumption as a means of keeping them placated has run its course as they exhaust their financial and planetary resources.  When they are no longer able to consume at the levels we need them to, their governments will lose the ability to control them and in turn, our influence over these governments will diminish.”

“What are you suggesting?”, asked his colleague.

“I’m not sure”, replied the first man, frowning. “If they discover that the momentum of what is developing on Terra cannot and will not be stopped but that hope for them lies in preparing for and surviving the aftermath, they may discover a solution that we had not anticipated”.

“In that case”, replied his colleague, “we will need to accelerate our efforts.  Surely it shouldn’t be that difficult to escalate a few wars, introduce a few more contradictory opinions to confuse them and instigate a few more causes to further weaken their so-called morals and values”.

The first man laughed and then, chuckling, said “You are right, as always.  I had forgotten that Terrans are in fact their own worst enemy.  Once again I give them too much credit to be able to solve their own problems.”

His colleague paused and then replied, “This is true for the most part.  However, there are still some holdouts who can make a difference and who can adversely impact our intentions.  But even they won’t matter soon enough”.

The first man smiled silently …. and they both turned their attention back to the monitors.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2012 – Harry Tucker – All Rights Reserved

Musings on resources versus resourcefulness

Good day, everyone.

I had an interesting interaction today with an associate and it brought some interesting thoughts to mind that I wanted to share and to invite some dialog on.

In the goal setting / life architecture program that I incubated for inner city youth, one of the things the kids and I discuss is the notion of overcoming the limited belief that people cannot accomplish things because they have limited access to time, energy and money. This fear prevents many people from striving to reach their dreams, because they believe they don’t have enough of “what it takes” in order to begin on their path and to reach their goals. For that reason, many people wait until the right moment to execute, only to discover years later that they waited too long because the perfect alignment of all resources never seemed to arrive.

In helping a good friend of mine (a fellow ‘Softee) sort through some messy client stuff today, someone else stepped up and said “One of the reasons this failed is that we don’t have enough time or people to do it right” to which I replied “Lack of success doesn’t stem from lack of resources – it stems from lack of resourcefulness”. I seem to recall that Norman Vincent Peale or someone similar coined this phrase many years ago.

However, it got me to thinking. With the pressures on our personal and professional lives, it is sometimes easy to fall back on an inability to execute because we believe we have limited time, energy and money and because of this belief, our intention to execute is stifled by fear that we are not equipped to seek out our ultimate goals or to execute things successfully. However, if we start to believe this on a consistent basis, perhaps we open ourselves up to not only lack of progress toward life goals, but perhaps to the potential for failure, with the thought that we can leverage the excuse of lack of this, that or the other thing to back us up when we fail.

When one considers unlimited time, energy and money to accomplish that which we wish to accomplish, this doesn’t necessarily mean that we have it within our personal portfolio. It is through recognizing that out network contributes to our success just as we contribute to the success of our network that we have access to unlimited resources. So when we need time, energy or money to execute successfully, we need to be open to leveraging the help of those whom we collaborate with just as we can be counted on when someone needs our help.

Only by doing this can we reach new heights of success and to help others reach their own new heights of success. People need to recognize more often that they can’t do it all themselves and no one expects them to. Leveraging the talents of the wonderful people all around us will take us to new heights and create opportunities that we never envisioned that we would have the opportunity to partake in.

I am very much interested in how readers of this blog help others leverage appropriate skills to make them more successful personally and professionally and how you helped someone overcome barriers (or how someone helped you overcome barriers) towards success.

Comments are welcome and invited.

I wish you all a wonderful day. Create opportunities for success where you can.

Best wishes,

Harry