Second Life or Next Life Thinking?

Cate Blanchett is promoting her new film with Brad Pitt, the film is about ageing and death. More misery you might think, but just think about the fact that European society is ageing fast - too few children coming through with all us girls out working, and fertility waning - the actual on-the-street experience we are going to be having is going to be much more about illness, ageing parents, and ultimately death. The baby boomers will expire in the same numbers as they lived. So in a secular society, with darwinism shouting at us that death is death and the church finding it difficult to combat the logical, rational idea that there is nothing else, finito, just like the Monty Python sketch, we will all be ex-Parrots one day, it is also quite reasonable to see why the need for making our mark, for giving back, for leaving a legacy is powerfully driving this world at the moment. Something we can bank in this world. Women operate differently to men. It is understood that women want to collaborate, they want to create a nurturing environment where people can shine. They don't want war, they don't want stupid arguments with the driver in the car next to them, they don't want to go faster just because they can. Women compete because them's was the rules, but women will break those rules. The world is and will continue to change its agenda to one of sustainability, men will realise and many have already that kindness is strength, that sharing is power. Annihilation will be so over one day as a way to settle things. Add to that our direct knowledge and experience of the world's ills via mass media, with our globe tripping bringing other countries closer to us, or people taking their culture with them, more so than at any other time in history, with our collective intelligence just getting going via internet connections, we will be seeking to leave this world a better place than we found it. Clearly it isn't at the moment, the system is screwed at the moment, but when the engineers have got the bonnet up, reworked things, taken account of the new terrain, the natural forces of systems will get things back on the road again. It ultimately has the potential to be a new period of enlightenment and of a purer light than we have ever experienced before. So just in case there is no heaven, what if we just have it now, here on Earth? Why put up with a world today for heaven in the next life and why not instead have our cake here on Earth and even believe we can eat it as well in the next life? A senior person I know was very disturbed by the idea of legacy a couple of years ago especially in the context of Tony Blair wanting to leave a legacy, there is the danger of ego corrupting things, however that same person is also possibly driven to do things properly and to have honour and commitment to business and society. Think about how making your mark could influence your clients, your customers, your company or friends. Could you help someone make their mark?