May 31st I attended this year's "Day of Inspiration" of PMT. The theme of the day was "Germany between recession and hope". Paul Donders pointed out that there's a "spirit of fear" that determines most peoples thinking about the future. Many people emphasize sustainability, however this is a conservative, pessimistic, status quo preserving attitude mainly motivated by fear that otherwise things may get worse. This is very different from motivation by the challenge and excitement of creating and shaping the future and creating new life. Fear is often the medium for false information to spread and grow. Pauls examples: population explosion (looks like it will not happen), greenhouse effect (unproven theory), malnutrition and analphabetism (rates are much lower than most people think - although still too high).
Laziness and pride cause people to reject labor, pain and challenges, which keeps them from developing their talents, discovering their purpose and taking and filling their place in society. This leads to fear and makes people victims (make others responsible), committers (no responsibility except for myself) or helpers (take over other peoples responsibility). Responsibility and freedom on the other hand lead to developed talents, discovered purposes and filled and taken places in society, fear can be replaced by love and truth, there will be designers instead of committers, friends instead of victims and coaches instead of helpers.
Good stuff. Looking forward to next years Day of Inspiration :)
