Apocalypse! The End of the World is Near?
In my work as a neuroeducator, I come across stories about our miraculous mind that fires my curiosity. Every week, I share my thoughts about how to work smart to amplify your organic potential, develop a growth mindset, and foster your brain health. I hope you enjoy them! (scroll down to read more)
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Have you ever wondered why so many people have a fascination with the apocalypse?
I believe our real concern lies in whether we are mature enough to save ourselves from ourselves.
When faced with an interesting question, like most modern humans, I decided to Google it. I got over 14 million results. Humankind is literally obsessed with the end of the world. Being forever curious, I delved deeper into this phenomenon.
We all have concerns with global unrest, climate change, extreme weather, viruses, vaccines, and the exponential changes we see in technology.
According to a myriad of sources, the doomsday mindset is our cognitive brains looking for survival techniques in an uncertain environment. It is a fear response.
NY Times writer, Christian Lorentzen, explored this idea in mythology, books, television shows, and even the recent buying behavior of the ultra-rich. According to him, we seem to be imagining the world’s end in scenarios where humanity’s survival is in the hands of Bruce Willis in “Armageddon” and Rick in the zombie series “The Walking Dead”.
The Amazon series “Oasis” favors survival as a luxury only available to the 1 percent. And this may have some haunting truth when you consider the preparation of tech magnates who are spending massive amounts of money on survival condos in missile silos, private off-shore bunkers, and quasi-military grade SUVs.
One of my family members works with some of these tech magnates and their fear of imminent annihilation and a second civil war is very real.
They are making preparations, at epic levels like many did after 9/11.
A friend in tech chuckled at this. It is his opinion that these same tech magnates would end up in their own civil war from within after seeing the destructive work culture that exists in most tech companies.
So again, perhaps their real concern lies in whether we are mature enough to save ourselves from ourselves.
And why is that?
Several things we do know.
Paleontology tells us there have been five major extinctions since the world began. Many believe we are in the middle of a 6th extinction created by humans ourselves. We are all struggling to manage life in the volatile and complex landscape of the digital revolution with species extinctions and threats from climate changes visible everywhere we look.
Society is being compelled to adapt at a much faster pace than we are used to.
It is overwhelming and exhausting.
The good news is that humans excel at adaptation.
We can approach this challenge in many ways, and we should.
One way is to optimize the power of neuroscience and technology together. Technological advances will continue coming and we can rally our adaptation skills and enhance our capabilities to face the rapid changes they trigger.
We have an opportunity not only to conquer 21st-century challenges but to amplify our existence to a new level. We have the tools we need to do so, but we will have to radically change our antiquated habits and adjust our mindset in how we approach the world.
First, we know knowledge is crucial, but traditional methods of learning fall short.
As it is, knowledge is often obsolete before students graduate. A shift in how we convey knowledge is crucial.
Interdisciplinary topics can integrate traditional courses into state-of-the-art classes like robotics that incorporate math, physics, engineering, and design.
Modern themes like financial literacy can be utilized to promote critical thinking using real life data, simplify concepts like compound interest, and help us understand the psychology of money. The outcome of teaching relevant-to-life skills could transform our populations most in need of financial stability regardless of whether they attend college.
Simply improving our technique for learning knowledge is not enough.
We must know how to empower that knowledge individually and in teams.
Many companies are struggling with top talent who cannot communicate their ideas effectively. Our competitive and individualistic systems in education have rewarded the highest achievers who graduate from Ivy League institutions and then fail to perform in the companies that hire them. So, companies are adapting.
Citi is an example of a company that has shifted its hiring guidelines from snagging Ivy League talent to screening employees for soft skills like rigor and polish. Communication and collaboration skills are being assessed by big name employers in talent auditions where hundreds of college students compete in teams and use a process to assess how they perform.
Traditionally, creativity was often seen as frivolous and less crucial than analytical thinking, but this mindset has stifled innovation.
Most “Aha” moments come when exploring problems freely, out of the box with a team of people with differing strengths.
It is also lots of fun, as evidenced by all the escape rooms that charge for the experience. There are few spaces in traditional classrooms for that now. Yet, technological advances are creating tremors that are building a tsunami of impacts, and we are unsure how to manage the swell of momentum.
How we behave and engage may well determine our fate as a human race.
Do we have the character traits necessary for managing the swell of technology?
Will our citizens have the needed leadership skills, the ethics required, and the courage to face what is coming rather than turn their backs in denial?
Will we have the resilience to deal with the aftermath and unanticipated problems that arise from the power of the storm surge?
I believe we do, IF we accept responsibility and face it as a challenge to be conquered. However, we need to hone our abilities to surf the biggest wave in history.
First and foremost, we need to empower the most powerful and unrivaled source of intelligence known to exist…the human mind.
We each have the power to simply think about thinking and change the infrastructure of the body with our thoughts. We have mind control. And that is a superpower that is seriously underutilized.
So much of what our mind does, how it uses knowledge, and how we behave is unconscious. It is based on basic human survival instincts, past experiences, incomplete information, and faulty assumptions. The mind is a wellspring of untapped potential at best and at worse a cesspool for inequity, stereotypes, and paralysis from fear.
We need to develop a heightened awareness for the superpower that has been shrouded in unconscious quarters. We can do this using metacognition.
Metacognition is the skill to think about thinking. Developing that superpower is only possible with effort and nurturing the other mind superpower of a growth mindset.
Most of us truly don’t know much about how we think or why we think the way we do.
We get stuck and frustrated with ourselves.
We get overwhelmed and exhausted.
Because of the deluge of information coming at us, we are increasingly recognizing that we must take better care of our minds and be mindful of what we attend to.
Tackling the challenges of the 21st century will stretch the capacities of our minds like never before. But by amplifying those capabilities and decreasing the nonsense we can enable the most sophisticated supercomputer ever created to surf the technology tsunami rather than be drowned by it.
I encourage you to join me on this modern adventure of the mind, not simply to survive, but to thrive and relish the ride.
Our future depends on it.