The Pursuit of Progress

What does it mean to truly move forward as a society?

I don’t think it’s up for debate when I say that Humanity’s role on this planet is Progress. Whatever shape it takes, be it scientific, spiritual or something else, Humanity’s goal is to progress, to evolve, to move forward.

As such, for both you and me, and humanity as a whole, as well as the entire natural world (through evolution), our focus must always be Change in the form of Progress.

And Progress = Happiness. (Thank you, Tony Robbins).

So, if you’ve ever wondered what was the role of humanity, it’s this:

The Pursuit of Happiness. Which basically means The Pursuit of Progress.

Let me write this again:

As an individual, your role is the same: to progress. To move forward. To become better.

But also, as a piece of this amazing puzzle called Life, your goal is also to push the progress of humanity as a whole, too.

Because we can only progress together, as a whole. Progressing as separate individuals while hindering the progress of others, or of humanity, that is not progress - that is Systematic Self-Destruction.

Hindering other people’s progress for one’s own selfish agenda is a crime against humanity.

Because, while you add value to your life, you subtract value from somebody else, making the overall equation of progress unbalanced. We will talk about this type of utilitarian thinking later in the book.

But for now, let us begin the Pursuit of Progress!

Perspective

The first step in understanding Progress is Having Perspective.

It means we need to start by looking at the bigger picture first, and then slowly zoom in on our life as an individual.

Why do we need perspective? Because, as I’ve written in the first few chapters, we are all connected.

Until about 150 years ago, we didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have live, instant communication between people from all over the world. We didn’t have fast transportation. We didn’t have plastic.

While there was a certain type of globalization going on, we definitely didn’t have the incredible level of globalization that we are experiencing today.

Which means, back then, it was enough for humans to only care about their closed communities: tribes, clans, villages. The only connector between these communities (in times of peace) were messengers (aka ancient postmen), tax collectors and traders.

Everybody else didn’t have to worry about anything else other than their immediate families and community members. The majority of actions were local. Food, traditions, art were local. The impact of most individuals was only as small - or as far as - their community.

Humans didn’t have to worry about climate change, social upheavals, famine, disease or wars taking place in other countries and so on. So our brains are not wired to take in all this huge amount of information, and it’s most definitely not wired to take on this huge responsibility that the internet age has brought upon us - the responsibility of being a global citizen!

At the same time, our brains are not wired to the immense speed at which our society is evolving. Progress used to be slow, and it used to be done IN A GROUP. Except for extreme cases, individuals were never as physically isolated and distanced from each other as we are today.

And we definitely weren’t connected to billions of strangers, and equally as many distractions.

Our Challenge is Unique in History

The Pursuit of Progress - what does it mean for our generation?

“What is the greatest challenge of our century?” - If you ask Elon Musk, he’ll say “Colonizing Mars”. If you ask DJ Steve Aoki, he’ll say “Achieving eternal life”. As much as these two concepts excite me, I strongly believe they’re a little bit down the list currently.

We cannot achieve any dream in this world if we don’t have the literal world to exist on. Unbeknownst to many (or maybe just intentionally ignored by some) we are facing the prospect of having no planet at all to achieve anything during the next decade.

Our priorities need to change.

We need to treat this challenge as it really is - an emergency.

An emergency situation can be overwhelming and even blocking. But with the right training, tools and in the right environment, it can be life-saving! And this book will provide you all 3 of these. It will become your tool to use to solve our global emergency!

For that, we need to keep being hopeful.

Honestly, every generation had its challenges. Whether it’s world wars, pandemics like cholera or bubonic plague (or Covid-19), the great depression or great famines, every generation has had to deal with something that threatened to end the progress of Humankind.

And yet here we are, still alive and thriving.

Because I believe in our specialists, I’d like to think about Covid19 as a temporary challenge. But there are far bigger challenges that we are currently facing. These are extreme social and environmental problems.

There have been several mass extinctions during our planet’s history, and we are now facing another one. But this time, this mass extinction could also engulf us, humans, too, not just the animals we’re pushing towards extinction.

Unless we treat the climate crisis as an emergency!

So, solving our social and environmental crises is our generation’s common goal, our shared challenge in the Pursuit to Progress.

We need to take care of our planet first, before engaging in any other futuristic or science fiction pursuits.

We get so caught up in our daily lives, with so many distractions and an overload of information, that we lost sight of the big picture. We lose sight of what is important to us and what actually matters. We lose sight of our priorities.

We need to regain Perspective. We need to recalibrate our priorities.

STOP. OBSERVE. RECALIBRATE

And ultimately, as human beings, we need to unite to achieve this common goal!

So what is this Common Goal?