What Should The Future Look Like

Tuesday, April 20th, 2004 | Uncategorized

Why am I here?

What the hell am I doing out in South America, apart from all my family, all my friends, and my chica? What am I doing putting my entire life on hold to live in third world conditions, chancing disease, bodily harm, and a host of other things I haven’t even considered?

Those are very good questions.
——
I have been thinking a lot about this, and some pieces fell into place on the long bike ride back yesterday.

My modus operandi is “How can I help?” I’m a goal driven individual, definitely a “doer”, that is remarkably good at “doing”. However, I need a dream.

In the microcosm of software development I found agile, and have been very happy with it. It is something I can believe in very strongly, and work like a horse for. I have a ton of skills, and more importantly a ton of drive, and I have the vision to see where I best fit into the big picture of making the software industry more agile, and default.ThoughtWorks has been very good at allowing me to put myself there.

In the real world, I’m not sure that I have a dream. There is definitely something wrong, but I don’t think I know what it is. And I definitely don’t know how to fix it. I don’t have the statistics, but something ridiculous like 99% of the world’s wealth lies with 1% of its people. People here are extremely lucky if they make $70 US a week. I had $400 a week to blow on nothing. That’s not right. But. It’s also not right that in the US, I wouldn’t say that people are any happier than here, and in fact I’d say they’re a lot more miserable. That’s not right. To be perfectly honest, I have no clue what the goal of the game is here. And because of that, I have no idea how to help out.

So.

I am left with (a sunburn, and) the first piece of my puzzle, a question :

What should the future look like?————
I need to think about, and read about, and talk about this.

I don’t particularly want to come up with a totally new and innovative picture of the future as much as I’d like to find someone else’s picture that I can believe in, and then work toward that. You would think this is what religion was for. Does Catholicism have such a picture?

Anyway, I welcome comments giving me hints or just resources, books, etc, in my quest to answer this first of many questions.

2 Comments to What Should The Future Look Like

Sonia Kranwinkel
April 20, 2004

Hello beloved.

I love your searching, your question.
Being in the Peace Corps got me thinking about these things.
But without quite knowing how I fit in, you’know?

I’m in Australia right now, last week was at a Anthony Robbins course. Frickin’ amazing, the breakthroughs and understanding! To figure out and fix crap that’s been stopping me in my personal/love life for 10 years, all in the space of one day, was the greatest gift. And that was just one day out of 5.

Check out Tony: Anthony Robbins…it’s about crafting the future you choose. conditioning your mind and body not to let fear or doubt or uncertainty or perfectionism be the controlling force. It’s about understanding what controls the choices you end up making, and then using those controlling forces to unleash you to the power and amazingness that is in us.
What we each are capable of is so much f’ing more! We get hints of it here and there, but imagine…Imagine, Jeremy…

For me personally, I met my best self on the dance floor. Beautiful, expressive, outrageous, funny, loving, helping newbies and everyone, full out growing, learning, joyous. The Anthony Robbins stuff is helping me to bring that outrageous, playful, free dancer girl, to the dance of life.

The books/cds are awesome, but the courses are exceptionally powerful. It puts it into your body and mind the way that blues are in our bones. It’s like the craziest-ass exchange you’ve ever been too, but one that leaves you completely energized and empowered.

so, don’t know…ya might want to check it out.

I know you are doing awesomely. You don’t walk alone…
Words cannot express the amperage of the hug
that I’m sending you right now.
You feeling me?

Toby Atencio
April 20, 2004

What’s the future look like?

I know the feeling. Its tied to your dream. And you get the dream directly from the Dreamgiver, aka God, aka the Trinity, the Three-In-One. You have a dream, I have a dream, everyone has a dream, and we all feel like there is something missing, like we are living in mediocrity, until we stop resisting the ludicrous dream and go for it.

I have been in love with Jesus for almost two decades now (17 years), and I am only just now beginning to grasp that being the person I was created to be is where I will find satisfaction with life. You discovered in your travels that people are just as happy in a place where they make $70 a week as they are in a place where they make $70 in 2 hours… possibly even more happy. I think you are right. Sonya and I sold our business, sold our house, paid off our debts and are persuing the dreams God put in our hearts when we were children (not wealth)… Sonya is starting an after school program (her dream is to teach: shaping the lives and minds of children), and I am beginning a ministerial studies program (equivalent to seminary, but through correspondence). We have nothing left, but we are happier than we ever have been!

So the future? I don’t know what mine looks like, but I know what I am supposed to be doing. The foundation of every person’s dream is its source: the Creator. He has a purpose and a plan for everybody, but He likes to give us the option of whether or not to persue the purpose/plan/dream. The Creator gives us the tools we need to make it happen. What do I have? 1. a strange ability to remember seemingly useless facts… they seem useless until I put them into a Sunday lesson for the church youth group. 2. I can sing. I don’t know why this is part of the future, but I have never been allowed to neglect my voice, AND I HAVE TRIED! I don’t like the attention I get when I perform, but I have a talent (read Matthew 25:14-30), and I don’t want to waste it. 3. God has opened my mind to teach His word. Its easy for me to understand it and express it in simple terms. This is a gift, not a skill. I am learning to use the gift skillfully (and I’m not so good yet), but I think there is a difference between the skill and the gift. This is what I have to work with in the present time.

The future? I find my future in the Bible. Practically? yes, but not in explicit terms. The Bible obviously isn’t saying to me “get up at 6:30 tomorrow morning and make breakfast for your wife.” But when I read it I discover that’s what it means to be the head of my household. For instance, Philippians 2 says “Your attitude should be like that of Jesus Christ, who, though he was God, did not demand and cling to his rights as God, but laid aside his mighty power and glory, taking the disguise of a slave and becoming like men. Christ humbled himself and he humbled himself even further, going so far as to actually die a criminal’s death on a cross.” (Living Bible Translation) Jesus, the creator in a body, controller of the Universe, gave up every right he had, even the right to life, and he is called the Head of the Church. So, when I read Ephesians 5:22-23 I truly understand “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior.” I no longer read this to see what is required of the wife (I’m not a wife, I’m a husband). The husband is the head of the wife, Christ is the head of the church. CHRIST GAVE UP ALL HIS RIGHTS FOR THE CHURCH… so the husband should follow suit, and give up all his rights for the benefit of his wife.

So I sit back and say, “Instead of sleeping in, I think I’ll wake up early and make my wife breakfast!” :-D There is no better example of this kind of leadership than that of Jesus, King of all things, washing the feet of his friends.

What does this have to do with my dream? This much… I only know the next step of my future. I am trusting God to fit my dream in there somewhere. Psalms 119:105 says “your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.” The imagery is of a person holding an oil lamp in the darkness. He can see the next few steps on the path, but not further than that. How much worse to not have the lamp (the Bible)! He wouldn’t be able to see a thing!

Therefore, the more I read the Bible, the more I end up following the path of my dreams, or the path to the future.

What are my dreams? I have dreams of finding myself in front of enormous crowds on a stage, and telling them that Jesus created them for a purpose, that he died and rose again so they could have unending, purposeful life. He didn’t die so he could send them to hell, but to save them from hell, because a long time ago things took a turn for the worse. He provided the fix, but he’s not going to force anybody to get “fixed.” Anybody who does get fixed, however, will be able to realize their dreams. I don’t know how I’ll ever get to that dream. I’m just trusting him to take me there.

Today’s Sonya’s birthday! I gotta go do something neat to make her feel loved! C-ya!

Toby

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