The World Today...

[pollycupcake]

I'm not trying to preach, or be philosophical or anything. I'm just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on the "state of the world today". Like I know a lot of us (although by no means all of us) here are reasonably lucky (adequate incomes, decent jobs, education etc), but when you look out in to the world there just seems to be so many problems and stuff going on.

You look out into the world and here's just a handful of the type of issues you see in the headlines on a daily basis: double-figure unemployment rates, the subprime mortgage crisis, rising road tolls and suicide rates, rising rates of very serious health issues like obesity, cancer and mental illness (read an article recently on 5 year olds hospitalised for anorexia - what kind of a future do these kids have?!), drug use, alcoholism, prostitution, broken marriages, broken homes, terrorism, crime, poverty (third world, ghettos, etc), kids who drop out of school and can't fufil their potential.....

Sure, my life isn't perfect either. No-one's life is. But it sure makes me feel very lucky and grateful for the good things I do have when I think about this kind of stuff in the world.

What does everyone else think?

[scotthegeek]

That one way to look at things and I agree with most of it but the brain is wire to avoid pain. You can go back to any point in history and people are struggle with life. We have the housing bubble but 3 hundred year ago they had the Tulip bubble. Child mortality was 50%. Look at how many people die in WWII compared to 911. I could go on.

I'm a Trekkie and this is my view.

Star Trek Joan Collins as edith keeler famous speech "someday man" - YouTube

Scott

[Clint Cora]

With everything in the world that's happening, it suggests a few things to me;

1) Always be ready for change
2) Always continue to learn and update skills
3) Live like there's no tomorrow - have balance
4) Never take what you have for granted
5) Spend and save carefully

[Lauxa]

I think that if we focus on creating a world we love, we can make real progress towards solving the problems of the world. But if we focus on too much on the problems, we get overwhelmed and complacent and then we are doomed. DOOMED.

[Merr]

This is why I rarely watch the news. Waaaay too depressing. Actually, what bothers me more about the state of the world is this. The self-contained bubble we're in. A lot of us sit at the computer and write on forums or spend time on facebook or texting. When we're not engaging in these kinds of activities, we're sitting watching television or getting into our cars to get from A to B. My point is that so many people are basically lonely and disconnected from society because of our reliance on modern day inventions. That, to me, is something which I don't think is so great.

[Clint Cora]

As a speaker, I have to watch the news. Current world events gives me perspective and they often become topics that make it to my talks and also writing. Audiences expect me to be current on things and they do ask questions about how some of the things I talk about relate to what's happening in the world. So I don't let the negatives of the world state bother me much. I take them as topics to speak and write about plus possible learn from.