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10 Things to feel ridiculously, gleefully, unabashedly hopeful about

4/17/2020

30 Comments

 
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Whoa. 
 
That’s the feeling we get every time we turn on the news or check social media these days, as things seem to keep getting worse.
 
It’s hard NOT to feel down, depressed, and despondent during these unprecedented times, with millions of people sick, thousands dying, and the whole economy shut down. 
 
There seems to be no quick solution or even solid answers, and it sure feels like the average person has been left to his or her own devices.
 
It’s all too much.
 
Then again, in those rare occasions that I'm able to throw the covers off and actually get out of bed, put down my third bowl of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch (note: I highly recommend it), or stop walking in circles around the house like a zombie, I realize that maybe things aren’t completely hopeless.
 
In fact, the sun is shining. I’m blessed to still have a roof over my head and food on the table, and the ability to control my own destiny, no matter how difficult that task may seem.
 
As usual, things may not be quite as bad as they seem. 
 
I can hit you with rosy platitudes like “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” or even start singing “Don’t worry; be happy,” but I’m not going to minimize what we’re up against (and you don’t want to hear my singing!).
 
Furthermore, intangibles and Trumpian double-speak do us no good at this point. We need some real and substantial cornerstones that make us feel optimistic about coming days.
 
So, here are 10 things to feel ridiculously, gleefully, unabashedly hopeful about:

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1.  Animal shelters are emptying That's great news if you're a pet lover, as people are adopting and rescuing dogs, cats, and other lovable critters at a record rate. In fact, some dog shelters have posted videos lately, showing that they're completely empty! It turns out, we all want a lovable four-legged friend at home to keep us company.

​(My dog, Pupperoni, is patiently waiting for me to return to the Philippines or I'd adopt five more here in Connecticut!)


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2.  The words ‘neighbor’ and ‘community’ mean something again
During good times, we were all a little guilty of fortifying ourselves in our McMansions and going about our own business.

​But now, people are more interested in helping, supporting, and just getting to know those around them again. We're sitting on our front porches and saying hi, making meals for seniors, and giving away things we used to try to sell. Young people, especially, are stepping up and showing character.


Isn’t it ironic that we’re more isolated than ever but feel a new sense of communal and civic pride?

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3.  Mom-n-Pop businesses are getting love
I don’t know about you, but I’m loving the rejuvenated relationship we have with local restaurants, Mom-n-Pop stores, and neighborhood businesses that are still operating. It seems like we appreciate them more than ever, and we’re actively supporting them with our dollars, (our stomachs), and by spreading the word. 
 
Think about when this is over; will you head to Chilis or Bed, Bath, and Beyond?! No! You’ll run to a local or Mom-n-Pop business to eat, drink, and shop to your heart’s content!

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4.  In some ways, we're becoming more human
As we traverse this storm of suffering with no relief in sight, I've noticed that people are becoming more human again. I liken it to the days after 9/11, when everyone waved and said hello, held the door open for each other, and generally remembered that we share the planet with others.

In fact, charity donations and volunteerism have skyrocketed already during this crisis, a heartwarming trend I expect to continue. 

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5.  We have time again​
Are we finally stopping to smell the roses? Looks like it, as we finally have a moment to pause, breathe, and not be rushed every minute of every day.

​Sure, we're bored, but our family dinners have become longer, we're talking to friends and family more than ever (even if it's virtually), and we're dusting off long-forgotten hobbies and passions. We're taking bike rides, doing yoga, learning (online) and reading, and taking walks with our kids every sunset. There may not be too many silver linings to these challenging times, but the fact that we can hit pause on the world for a moment is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

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6.  People are getting their priorities straight
​
Although what’s to come will be extremely painful, we also are recalibrating our priorities, which will have a positive effect for the rest of our lives. All of a sudden, we are filled with appreciation just to have a hot meal, the chance to talk to an old friend, or when we get to hug our family safely every night. And just being healthy for another day feels like an enormous blessing.
 
Maybe we needed a little wake-up call? 

Well, this is it, and many of us are already listening, focusing on simplifying our lives and living with newfound gratitude.

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7.    Nature is our saving grace!
​
My anxiety (ok, abject panic!) often rises to a boiling point when I stay inside to work, watch the news, or scroll through social media. Then, I step outside, and everything feels better. 

Even a few minutes out in my backyard or at the local park reminds me that some of the best things in life are the fresh air (allergy season notwithstanding), blue skies, blooming flowers, and wild animals. 
 
Many of us are lucky enough to experience nature in one way or another, and the planet even seems to be healing itself a little with less pollution and more space for wildlife to roam again.

A lot of people around the world (more US people will start doing this if they're smart) are even starting to plant home gardens and grow their own food. Clean energy may even become more sustainable through all this. Hell, maybe there is just a spark of hope for the planet? 

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8.  We have a new appreciation for the little people (who, it turns out, were never little at all!)
We'll look back at these dark days and remember the heroes, new leaders, and regular people who exhibited remarkable courage and sacrifice. We all have a new appreciation for teachers, police officers, first responders, doctors and nurses, bus drivers, grocery store workers, social workers, and all sorts of other extraordinary humans that sometimes go unappreciated. 
 
I'm sure you've seen the videos of New Yorkers applauding and cheering their local healthcare workers during the nightly 7 pm shift change. I propose that we keep that tradition alive after this is all over – and expand it to show love and respect for a whole lot more "little people" who are huge in our lives.

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9.  Change is coming
Just a few weeks ago, the world we live in now would be inconceivable.

(Would you ever imagine that you're required to wear a mask when walking into a bank?!)

Absolutely everything has changed, and we're still trying to wrap our collective psyche around that. 

There will be pain and suffering to come; there's no avoiding it. But this grandest of transformations will also bring a chance to reinvent just about every aspect of our society - and even the human experience.  We are blessed and cursed with the responsibility of rebuilding our world, and no one knows exactly what that look like except that it will be new.

Change is inevitable as it is imminent. It's now the age of rebirth for activists, artists, healers, designers, dreamers, teachers, empaths, environmentalists, inventors, underdogs, outcasts,  leaders, and, especially the youth, as we've turned this world into a fuster cluck and it's time to let the next 

The meek may just inherit the earth, after all...and I'm hopeful that they'll take far better care of it than we ever did.

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10.  People are ready to start living again 
Psychologists outline a process that we go through whenever we suffer a grave loss or tragedy, with stages from shock to denial, anger, bargaining, depression, reconciliation, and then, acceptance. 
 
I don't know about you, but I think they're missing a couple of stages like, "Wearing the same sweatpants for 72 hours" and "Drinking wine at 10 am while holding a full conversation with the mailbox."
 
But there will be an eighth stage at the end of all this: Ready.
 
People will be ready:
Ready to work.
Ready to rebuild.
Ready to experience.
Ready to learn.

Ready to heal.
Ready to give.
Ready to connect.
Ready to love without censor or fear.
 
Very soon, we’ll be ready to LIVE again!
 
That alone is something to feel incredibly hopeful about, and I think it’s coming sooner than we may realize.
 
Trust me when I tell you; You’ll want to be around for the dancing in the streets after these dark days are over!

-Norm  :-)

PS If you found this helpful or uplifting at all, can you please do me a favor and share it on social media? Thanks a billion!

30 Comments

Your June 2019 Postcard from Norm: A look at our world in 2050.

6/8/2019

3 Comments

 
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Welcome to 2050 - wanna look around?

2050 sounds SO far away; THE FUTURE.


But life comes at ya fast. Remember when you felt like 2020 was so far in the future, it was hard to envision? Or, for you old-schoolers like me, 2000 used to be the FUTURE personified when we looked ahead. (Remember the big Y2K scare?)

Since we’re squarely in the middle of 2019, that means we have “only” 30 years and 6 months until 2050.
​
To give you an eye-opening parallel, 30 years and 6 months ago was June of 1988 (when I was a sophomore in high school!).
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We know that 2050 will be here sooner than later…but what will it look like?

In this ongoing blog series, I’m going to take a close look at what life will most likely look like by mid-century, from demographic changes to (lots) of environmental issues, technology and medical advances that may be our only salvation, SMART cities and yes, flying cars (that are self-driving, of course). 

As far back as the Jetsons we thought we had a handle on what the future would look like, but the human stain and the Law of Unintended Consequences always seem to lead us far astray from a Utopian world. 

To come up with these bullet points from the future, I did a bunch of research written by a bunch of wicked smart people at MIT, Harvard, the United Nations, Milken Institute, the Smithsonian Foundation, Rockefeller University, Oxford University, Time, World Bank, Popular Science, the World Wildlife Fund, and many more. I also applied some informed conjecture as to which trends, movements, or phenomenon will emerge and continue.

So, if someone uncovers this blog in 2050 and my textual time capsule is spot on, I’ll take all the credit. But if these predictions are far off, don’t blame it on me but the eggheads at Harvard.
​
Enough chatter already (the English language will be truncated by 20% within 30 years, by the way, with far more emojis and emoticons). Let’s take a look at our world in 2050:

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A whole lot more of us
By 2050, the world's population is forecast to reach 9,725,147,000 – or just about 2 billion people more than we have now. For those of you keeping count at home, that's like adding another India and China to our current population.
​
The slightly good news is that our population growth rates will somewhat level off in the next few decades. 
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But the bad news is that there will be major consequences to adding an additional 2 out of every 10 people to our already resource-depleted planet.


​Urbanization
One of the most significant shifts we've seen over the last fifty years that will continue is urbanization. By 2050, 6.3 billion people will live in cities, or nearly two-thirds of the entire human population, putting the nail in the coffin on the agrarian period of human history.

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And we all need to be fed 
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization ran the numbers on what it will take to feed more than 9 billion people and determined that we’ll need to increase our current food production levels by 60% by 2050.

That’s a tall order (and we haven’t even talked about usable water yet). For instance, wheat and rice production across the world has only increased at a rate of less than 1% over the past 20 years.
​
However, the task isn’t insurmountable. We already have the technology and know-how to fill about 80% of that need for increased food production by 2050 – it's just a matter of implementing it (and getting away from huge private corporations feeding us).

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​We’re getting really old
In 2050, the world’s population will look much older than it does today. By that year, it’s expected that one out of every six people on earth will be 65 years or older.

​This is due to several factors, but more prominently advances in health and medical care (and less major wars) that are allowing us to live longer, and as well as decreases in fertility rates.
​
By 2050, some industrialized nations like Germany, Japan, Canada, and, yes, the United States, will have public health campaigns and economic incentives in place that encourage its citizens to have more babies!

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If you think traffic is bad now, wait until 2050!
By 2050, there will be 2.5 billion cars and automobiles on the roads (or in the air!), a 150% increase over the one billion vehicles we have now.
​
Let’s do the math: An extra 2 billion people+ 65% of the world living in cities + 1.5 billion more cars = a lot of traffic jams.

The good news is that self-driving cars and semi-private shuttle vehicles will free us up to use that time wisely, with virtual offices, sleeping pods, entertainment centers, and even mini-fridges and coffee makers all standard features in self-driving cars by 2050! Well, maybe not the coffee makers (read below).


Hot earth
Scientists predict that the world’s temperature will increase significantly by 2050. In fact, our world’s average temperature will be 1.89 C to 2.5 C hotter than it is now, with far-reaching and drastic effects.

We’re going to talk about climate change and the environmental Armageddon facing our world 
ad infinitum over this series of blogs looking at 2050, as it is THE most pressing issue for the human race right now. 

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Coffee and climate change
Here’s one example of how climate change can hit close to home.

By 2050, coffee will be a high-priced luxury item, not an everyday staple. Due to shifting weather patterns, rainfall levels, temperatures, soil conditions and more, growing coffee will be far more difficult and possible in fewer locations around the world, leading to a run on prices.

Forget your $2 Dunkin Donuts coffee, your $3 Starbucks, or making coffee for even less at home - the average cup of coffee in 2050 may cost about $12 in 2019 prices! 


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​A world without vino?
The same can be said for wine, which will be far harder to grow. The change in micro-climates also means that Napa Valley and other areas where conditions are perfect – albeit fragile – for growing grapes right now will be barren of vineyards. Our beloved vino will be extremely rare and the price will shoot up exponentially.

A world without coffee or wine?!

​Hell no! We won’t go!

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We’ll all use Bitcoin 
It hasn’t earned mainstream appeal as anything more than a speculative investment…yet…but many of the world’s top economists think that the rise of e-currencies is inevitable. In fact, they anticipate that Bitcoin will finally break out and take over FIAT currencies as soon as the next global economic crisis (which may be only a couple of years away).
Even if it takes a decade or two for Bitcoin to become the preferred method of payment, savings, and investment, by 2050, we’ll think of traditional banks as an archaic token of a bygone era. 

Other e-currencies will come and go, but they’re anticipated to make up only about 10% of total use compared to Bitcoin’s domination.

Late in 2018, the United Nation’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) announced that we’ve reached a notable milestone where 50% of the world has Internet access. 

They anticipate meteoric growth in the coming decade, most of it on mobile devices. But, the ITU also projects that we won’t reach the high-water mark of Universal Access – defined as Internet access for 90% of the world population – until 2050 – or later. ​

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We finally have Universal Internet access 
By mid-century, 97.5% of the entire world will be online, or 8 billion people. However, reaching the last 20% (from 70-90%) will prove to be the most challenging jump since the vast majority of internet access (78%) is now in wealthy nations, as opposed to only 32% in developing countries.
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This vast disparity in Internet access mirrors a phenomenon called the Great Cognitive Divide, with literacy levels, education levels, job opportunities, modernization, and much more following that same chasm.

The Pope will be black
This may seem like a random event, but a black pope in 2050 is both a sign of demographic shifts and of huge socio-political significance. For two thousand years (as long as there have been Popes!), the euro-centric Catholic church has tapped their own as Popes. Sure, a few of the early 266 Popes throughout history were from the middle east or Northern Africa, but not African or black in the sense we think of today.
​

But within 30 years, Africa will hold one of the highest populations of Catholics thanks to Nigeria and other growing countries, spawning the naming of a Pope of color from that continent and a seminal event for inclusion and religious leadership. It might even signal the official end of a post-Colonial era! ​
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The U.S. is a true melting pot
In 2000, the United States census allowed people to select more than one category under "Race" for the first time ever. That year, 6.8 million Americans checked more than one box, claiming multi-racialism. 

By the 2010 census, that number had increased 30% to 9 million Americans who registered as multiracial.That demographic and racial shift is expected to increase exponentially, jumping 176% between 2018 and 2060. 

In fact, by the year 2045, Caucasians will become a minority in the United States for the first time, comprising only 49.7% of the population.

One out of three people under thirty years old will be multi-racial, which will (hopefully) provide an inevitable salve for some of the wounds and racial divides in our nation. But those divides don’t just disappear, as classism will be the new racism.

So…will we have flying cars in 2050?
​

Of course! That’s like so 2040!

I hope you enjoyed this look at the not-so-distant future and look forward to more analysis of 2050 in future blogs. Until then, have a great month and thanks for sharing!

-Norm 2050   :-)
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According to computer aging projections, this is how I'll look in 2050. The scary part is that's exactly how I look in the mornings now! 

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    Norm Schriever

    Norm Schriever is a best-selling author, expat, cultural mad scientist, and enemy of the comfort zone. He travels the globe, telling the stories of the people he finds, and hopes to make the world a little bit better place with his words.   

    Norm is a professional blogger, digital marketer for smart brands around the world,  and writes for the Huffington Post, Hotels.com, and others.

    Check out South of Normal his Amazon.com best-selling book about life as an expat in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.

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