It occurred to me the other day that it seems to have only taken a generation (a generation  seen as 70 years) for humanity to descend on a slide of no return.
For sure I felt it but then read this which I think sums up my outlook pretty well.  “Profound evil has always existed, but usually, after it ran its course, …there was the renewed hope that, with enough introspection and personal accountability, each one of us would aspire to a higher level of humanity especially towards one another. It seems that we cannot help ourselves, because, although we may be able to hold it together for a few decades, we always seem to gravitate back to the basest of behaviours…  Each person does what is right in their own eyes – the true definition of anarchy.”
I do feel sorry for the Syrians.  I rejoice with them that a non-caring regime has gone. Yet I feel sorry for them that, if history is anything to go by, their hope will prove to be unfounded.  For centuries mankind has sought to create its own utopia, but the closer it seems to become, the further away it is seen to be.
I will do what I can to bring about the best for another, but I reckon I would be in denial to think that overall things are getting better rather than worse.  I have often said “if these ideas are so good, why is the world not a better place now?”  It seems to me mankind would like to say “I’ve got this” but evidence shows he would be lying.  I am a creation and not the Creator no matter how much I would like to be.
I can’t help but feel the genie has been let out of the bottle and cannot be put back in.  Someone said something like, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”  The point for me is there seems to be a spreading contagion.
But “where there is life there is hope.”  I have a hope built on something often rejected but never dis-proven.  Others have had and still have, that hope.  I rejoice in good examples and am disappointed in, and learn from, the bad.  Others are not me.  I will do what I can.  The choice is mine.

I read something in the email from James Clear which is sort of a mantra to me.
Poet and novelist Charles Bukowski on forging your own reality:  "I was waiting for something extraordinary to happen but as the years wasted on nothing ever did unless I caused it."  Source: Post Office (1971)
To me this is what preparation is all about.  Finding the right goal and preparing so that I am ready for it when it happens.  Initially I may know only that this is the way for me to go.  When I truly feel that I feel it is incumbent on me to make it happen.  In fact, that is one of my go to sayings, “make it happen.”
So often I see others (and it is understandable) say, “I do not see what I need so I will move on until I find it.”  I do not blame the majority for thinking that way.  Yet I do feel it is necessary for one to say at some stage, “I do not see what I am after so I will make it happen.”
That is the way I live my life.  Making it happen.  My experience is it can be a very lonely place - especially initially.  But I see it happen.  A coming together of those of like mind working towards what they collectively want.
I liken it to what I see in our front garden.  We planted stuff and now the same stuff is in places we did not plant it.  It took one to make many.   
There is an old saying that, “a burden shared is a burden halved.”  One can only do so much while two can do sometimes twice as much or more.  And as an organization grows two can become twenty.
My thinking is to build what is self-sustaining.  That is, it is not built on the charisma of one person and when that person goes the organization dies.  What I like to see is an organization continuing because it is not dependant on personality.  It reminds me of something I heard recently.  “Personalities come and go while policy remains.”
It is all about making it happen.  Like attracts like and anything (worthwhile or otherwise) needs to start somewhere.  When I feel it is right for me then it may as well be me.

I read a term that I am pleasantly surprised did not cause me to hurt myself.
“Positive Deconstruction.”  It is positive because it finds points of agreement while it deconstructs as it also finds points of difference.  In other words, it aims to start from points of agreement.  That tends to cause negotiators to be more open to discuss points of disagreement.
It had me thinking that is the way much negotiation is carried out.  Often it seems to me there is little hope of agreement being reached only to hear it has been.  So agreement is found between what appear to be polar opposites.  I think right now of the negotiations in Northern Ireland.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear there had been a coming together for a common purpose or goal of both sides involved.
To me it makes so much sense to approach matters this way.  As in any negotiation there must be a willingness from both sides to reach a mutually satisfactory conclusion.  If one party is unwilling, then to me negotiation is a waste of time.  Also there needs to be mutual trust.  If one party states something to get its way and reneges on what it agreed to, then it will be a case of “once bitten twice shy.”
But as long as those conditions are met it seems that often people are not as far apart as may be first though.
To some compromise is a dirty word.  Yet to me it is totally necessary.  Some things for sure are foundational and never up for negotiation.  But it is like a song I like a lot says, “some of them we must defend with everything we’ve got, some of them don’t matter much at all.”
It is amazing how many conversations I engage in where what does not matter is defended like it does.  But in the end, I always ask myself. “does this matter enough to keep us apart, or can enough common ground be found to bring us together?”
Where it is just my opinion which I know from experience can change, then I do not feel it is important enough to keep me from engaging with someone (who’s thoughts may be very different to mine, but who really wants the same thing as me.)
For sure to me it is a fine line, but vulnerability is always a risk.