What’s your sentence? What’s the phrase that could succinctly describe your life. Tough question.
Daniel Pink says we all have a sentence like this. I’m working on mine. No doubt it will feature creativity, freedom, travel and cats. I’m finding this really difficult because other than writing I don’t feel I have much else to offer the world. Like I said, it’s a work in progress.
Dan Pink is an engaging speaker and well worth adding to the list of ‘People who can teach me things’. Oprah has interviewed him a few times and recently he talked about how he feels very optimistic for the future and generally thinks things are getting better. I find this interesting because there are A LOT of people who are going to disagree with him on that!
On that note, have you heard of Steven Pinker? He’s the researcher famous for perpetuating the idea that things are better now than they have ever been. That global poverty has decreased, that we are living longer, happier lives. A lot of people have disagreed with him but you can’t deny the empirical data. We are living longer, fewer people live in abject poverty than 50 years ago, and we are less likely to get stabbed while walking down the street. At least where I live.
My point is, do you think these guys are more optimistic because they have a cheery colour in their name? If his name was Dan Puce, would he be so chipper? Would Steven Beige be so eager to write about how wonderful the world is?
I think not.