1776 and all that….
America and England are countries separated by the same language, said someone far more accomplished than me. This week saw some interesting things, things that ordinarily do not happen or at least we think they don’t.
In the Fifa World Cup the USA team progressed further than the English, despite losing the USA team received plaudits from around the globe yet the country that invented football returned home with it’s tail between it’s legs.
The famous cycle race ,The Tour de France started in Yorkshire, England. Yes , you would think it would be in France but they will be racing there within a few days. Two and a half million people lined the race route watching very fit emaciated looking athletes speed past them at over 30 miles an hour, just so they could say ‘I was there!’.
What do we make of all this?
Things ain’t what they used to be and the more you look the more you realize that our standard perception of things is being challenged in all areas of life. Technology and social media has blown open the field of experience for most people, no longer are we content with communicating across borders, now we want to blur borders and experience all manner of things on demand.
The great thing of course is that differences make things interesting, challenging and rewarding. Breaking new ground, be it metaphorically or physically, can initiate milestones in understanding which help us all. The danger is that we will become so familiar with each other that we will slowly but surely develop a contempt for these differences rather than an increased reverence of them.
Not only do we have international borders to cross mentally, we have generational differences in our workplaces , all these things together need to be acknowledged, appreciated and understood.
see you on the long and winding road……. Patrick