What has been overlooked for many years gained importance during the current pandemic: mental health. Being stuck in homes has hampered many people’s mental and emotional wellbeing. As a society we must find a way to be more supportive to the mental health needs of each other. Society 2045 discovered a movement well underway to achieving this goal.

This past summer, Society 2045 had a series of interviews with change makers seeking to improve the way society works.

Society 2045 is a community of people from around the world seeking to co-discover a vision for the year 2045. The goal is to connect with leaders of emerging communities and movements across society and come together to co-create a better future.

In an interview with Rita Marie Johnson, founder of the Connection Practice we discovered that she grew up in Missouri on a farm. She ended up living in Costa Rica for about 25 years, and it was there she began to develop a social-emotional learning method called the connection practice.

Rita brought it into the Costa Rican public schools with the support of President Oscar Arias, a Nobel peace prize laureate. She says she was fortunate as a Missouri farm girl with bad Spanish to be able to do that in Costa Rica. “It was miraculous” She ultimately decided to see what she could do to create a different world and positively impact elsewhere.

The connection practice is an organization that focuses on inner wellness and supports children and adults with a scientific methods to enable connection with themselves and others. Their mantra is empathy + insight = connection.

The Vision

Rita believes that being in touch with our needs is crucial in creating a future vision for ourselves, especially when working with our feelings. It plays a vital role in creating a world of greater harmony and creativity that we want for our children. However, being in touch with our feelings is one thing, but healing from trauma is also essential to establish a deeper connection.

The Practice

Through the connection practice, people can have all their painful memories erased. Thus, their innocence restored. There are many ways to heal those memories so that we do not keep passing on generational pain. It has a vision for turning generational pain into generational peace.

“Pain and trauma have a way to become generational inheritance, unless we heal and turn them into peace we can pass down to our children.”

That is the aim of connection practice. When we sit down under a tree and hear each other, it establishes a deep listening and connection. Understanding and empathizing with each other is essential. That is part of the connection practice’s vision for the future — being connected to ourselves, others, and nature.

Using creativity that can be tapped into at will, is taught in the connection practice. This practice not only allows access to creativity individually but also works best with teams.

When children follow the connection practice, they learn how to connect internally and externally. These children teach the same to their parents and guardians.

“Children can teach adults so much about connection and healing, if given the proper tools.”

The Effects

When we learn to connect individually as well as live as a connected family, we reciprocate this in every sphere of our lives, including work. Therefore, now we can collectively solve the challenges before us instead of spinning out of control and being divided by wars.

To remain divided is genuinely a waste of potential human innovation and energy. Then same energy can be focused with connection practice and can help us become transformers. Thus, with connection practice, we spend less time suffering and more time in the practice of joy, actualizing and creating in ways that work for everybody.

The connection practice starts with a clean slate, and lets people come in, and lets them learn how to connect with themselves and their surroundings.

“Being able to connect with your surrounding in nature is a beautiful experience, we can harness as we connect with other people.”

Managing Conflicts

Organize people into groups focused on similar goals and you’ll have conflicts. No organization is immune from conflict. Churches and even spiritual communities are hotbeds of conflict. No matter how hard one tries to avoid them.

Conflict cannot be avoided.

It is how you act on the conflict that is 100% dependent on you. It is tied to your ability to practice empathy, discernment (insight), and it’s tied to your motivations.

Many who practice God fearing love, tend to be more prone to find solutions to conflict as they rise above personal egos. For others who may not be connected to their community that way, the connection practice provides helpful practice boards to solve disputes.

The Future

With connection practice, we can find a fairer way of sharing resources. When we are in touch with your needs and other people’s needs, we can make strategies to fulfill those needs. This helps in creating a world where everybody can get their most basic needs met.

According to RadicalPurpose.org we have lost touch with our human needs for meaning, impacting, belonging, and becoming — causing us to build a system of work based on a paradigm of force stemming from the belief that people are inherently flawed, stupid, and lazy. 

Our current system of work comes from an antiquated paradigm that is causing tremendous organizational dysfunction and personal suffering.

“It’s unsustainable to continue working in a system of rules built on force.”

As people we need to co-create a way of working and being together that meets our needs, and this can only come by learning to live in harmony. We can look to nature for many lessons about interdependence on how to effectively do that.

Rita’s vision for a more connected society in 2045 is groundbreaking. It will be amazing if we are able to achieve her vision in the coming years. Check out the interview here:

The world we live in has innumerable species coexisting together on the same planet, that provides for all. But does today’s world really work for all?

This past summer, Society 2045 had a series of interviews with change makers seeking to improve the way society works.

Society 2045 is a community of people from around the world seeking to co-discover a vision for the year 2045. The goal is to connect with leaders of emerging communities and movements across society and come together to co-create a better future.

In an interview with Shariff Abdullah, Director of Commonway Institute we talked about creating a world that works for all. Shariff is a consultant, speaker, author, and advocate for societal transformation.

Shariff came through a challenging childhood in Camden, New Jersey. It was a hard upbringing, but Sharif was able to move through it. He went to law school in Boston, practiced law for several years as an activist lawyer. 

He then decided that he might do a lot more as a writer than as an activist. He was involved in the peacekeeping movement in Sri Lanka when they had their civil war down there and many other causes along the way.

In one of his latest books, called ‘The Chronicles of the Upheavals,’ he secures a vision for a positive future.

It Starts With You

The most crucial step towards solving a problem is to be able to recognize yourself as part of the problem. We are so used to pointing our fingers at others, saying things like “those guys over there need to change their consciousness.” That’s what most of us say when we talk about consciousness. Very few of us want to own that that we are an integral part of the problem.

The Essence

Creating a world that works for all is not the same thing as saying, “I want the world to be a better place.” You cannot just go out on the street, pick up one cigarette, and put it in the trash can and think you have made the world a better place, and then go back and do whatever you feel like doing. Creating a world that works for all means that you must give up your position and look at the role of 20 or 30 different human beings from around the world. For example, a fisherman in Sri Lanka, a seamstress in Bangladesh or somebody who drives a truck for Amazon in the US. Then you must take 10 or 15000 other beings from different species, saying how the world works for that bird right there? How does the world work for that tree right over there?

Joanna Macy created something that she called ‘the council of all beings’ where you sit in a room, not as a human being — you get assigned an animal. You sit there as part of the fish nation, or you’re sitting there, part of the winged nation. We must learn how to do that. How to think on behalf of all species.

“We need to learn how to think and then act not as human beings but as citizens of the entire planet, along with all the other species.”

This is especially true since the metamorphosis we’re going through right now, is going to be so profound. The easy part is that we don’t have to do very much because mother earth herself is shifting the tables right under our feet.

What we’re trying to do is hold the line. What we’re trying to do is get all the fire trucks in the world to line up to keep the forest fires away from us. We are fighting just one battle.

We’ve lost it if we keep going the way we’re going. According to Shariff, we may not even be around for very long as a species, however mother earth will survive, no question about that. It’s just not about what we want, it’s about what the earth wants and needs.

The Current Scenario

What we see now is a society that works for almost no one. Take the tired, the poor, the hungry that are on the teeming shores of our streets right now. We say to people you can become part of a future and that future looks like a butterfly. We need to get over our caterpillar ways, and then we can go someplace. The resources for that to happen, exist right now in our society.

The Solution

According to Shariff, all the world’s religions are like wells that are plugged into the same underground river. All the fundamentalists believe that their well is the only one that has water in it. They also believe that everybody else has poison, so the challenge is how we embrace the entire river, and that’s the function of how we work on blended consciousness.

We know how to blend consciousness. It’s just that each group is trying to blend consciousness for their group instead of for the whole. The only solution for us is to come together as one.

Shariff Abdullah’s vision for a more inclusive for all species world in 2045 is groundbreaking. It will be amazing if we are able to achieve his vision in the coming years. Check out the interview here:

Can you imagine a future with more collaboration and less chaos? Is it possible?

This past summer, Society 2045 had a series of interviews with change makers seeking to improve the way society works.

Society 2045 is a community of people from around the world seeking to co-discover a vision for the year 2045. The goal is to connect with leaders of emerging communities and movements across society and come together to co-create a better future.

In an interview with Douglass Carmichael, we discussed the concepts in his upcoming book Garden World.

Doug is currently working on strategic issues with The Institute for New Economic Thinking. He is also working on the book Garden World Politics.

The Vision

One of the challenges about our time, due to all the chaos, is that people have almost no imagination of what a better society could look like. Now, to paint a picture of 2045- we are in punctuated equilibrium. 

You have an environment that is relatively in quasi-equilibrium like most environments are. Then something happens outside, and everybody in the environment needs to mutate to respond to the changes.

That is where we are, we are going to see a lot of emergencies. It is kind of like where a river breaks into a delta with lots of little streams going in every direction.

The Issues

We learn as children that you solve problems by breaking them into pieces and working on the wrong parts. Hence the forces that create the problems lie outside those narrow definitions. If you solve several problems at the same time, you might get more leverage.

One thinking about the garden world is that you must deal with the fact that we currently have eight billion people on the planet, which is probably going to be different by 2045. We will have to rethink the future in creative new ways, but it is undoubtedly going to be a challenge. Another thing with the garden world is that you cannot leave out technology.

The two fundamental problems that are obvious about 2045 are food and habitat. We are going to face increasing temperature with all the consequences of that. Included are the failure of agriculture in many places and the inability of the oceans to produce fish in quantity. It is certainly going to be a problem, especially if we find ourselves unable to produce a lot of electricity.

The future of cities is in danger. They need to be fed. Who is to do that? Agriculture has been subordinated to the city in terms of income and status. That must come apart, and cities will have to exist in harmony with small towns.

Another problem, according to Douglass Carmichael, is the greed of capitalism. The problem with capitalism is that it’s simply a community surplus owned by some and not by others. They get to make political decisions that ought to be peaked on economically. 

“Shifting from the capitalist mentality that we are all in will take a complete change in consciousness and the human element.”

The Solutions

People are highly motivated by meeting the community’s real needs. They take pleasure in that pride, giving them status in society. But they often get anxious about getting off the list. 

We should be looking at ways to stimulate our imaginations towards creating a world in 2045, that works, is livable, has safer cities, cleaner environments, and people treating each other with more kindness and compassion.

But one serious problem in this regard is that many places in the world, in fact most of them, are not autonomous or have a self-sufficient economy that the garden world calls out for. So, what we need to do is to work on the places where we can and work on the support for the people who are often left out.

“Along with widely distributed technology using the internet, we need widely distributed new form of social welfare to help people.”

If everybody was thinking of persons they know, who are in the worst situation and try and help them and just make that the ethic and the pleasure of living in the evolving world, it would be terrific.

In early human society, people were communities — the idea of the individual did not exist. You cannot have a strong community without strong individuals; you cannot have strong individuals without a strong community. It is not either-or it is both — they go together.

The main idea behind the garden world is about mutual collaboration based on caring, kindness and compassion. All this would translate into less chaos and a better world.

Douglass Carmichael’s vision for a more collaborative world in 2045 is groundbreaking. It will be amazing if we are able to achieve his vision in the coming years. Check out the interview here:

This past summer, Society 2045 had a series of interviews with change makers seeking to improve the way society works. One of our guest speakers was Kimberly Wiefling, Founding Member of Silicon Valley Alliances.

Society 2045 is a community of people from around the world seeking to co-discover a vision for the year 2045. The goal is to connect with leaders of emerging communities and movements across society and come together to co-create a better future.

In an interview with Kimberly, we discussed the future of workplaces.

There are multiple ways in which the workplace environment impacts organizational productivity.

“If an organization fails in providing an ideal workplace environment to its employees, they feel unheard, unburdened, unhappy, and disengaged.”

Due to the pandemic, the remote work culture is on the rise, therefore curating the right workplace environment is essential. Organizations must give encouraging, inspirational, and empathetic virtual and in-office working environments to achieve significant growth. They must do this for their employees and themselves.

Let’s understand what the future workplace will look like and what organizations must do to not only thrive, but to remain in business.

Kimberly Wiefling is a physicist by education. She has worked as an engineering and product developer at Hewlett Packard for 10 years. After which, she had three startups in Silicon Valley. Unfortunately, they failed, but she believes her project didn’t fail due to technical reasons. Instead, team leadership, and organization’s culture played a major role.

Now, she has a new understanding of soft human skills in our world. She is also one of the founding members of Society 2045.

Let’s see how she envisions 2045 for the workplace.

The Essential Organizational Culture and Framework

In the future, there will be a shortage of talent and the places that do not do what’s required to attract and retain talented people will go out of business.

They will simply lack the people to implement their business plans. Therefore, it’s going to be a huge, compelling competitive advantage to have an organizational culture and framework and procedures that are not going to suck your will to live.

Work as a Means of Gratification

We envision people in 2045 will not work during the day, and only have fun at night or on the weekends. Fun and work will be an integral part of a gratifying life.

“For people to thrive in every way, work will need to be decoupled from a survivalist mindset and become an integrated fun and gratifying way to live.”

Therefore, if people will come to know the ways through which they can pay their mortgage, get food, ensure that their kids get a decent education, they will likely work to contribute to our world in ways that are important for the world and gratifying for them.

How do we make this vision a reality?

Fulfill the Basic Survival Needs

Today, most people work as wage slaves according to Kimberly. They aim to fulfil their basic survival needs like food, water, shelter. However, there’s plenty on planet earth for everybody to have enough to eat, drink, and live a decent life — that includes good healthcare, access to clean water, and decent education.

If we make a commitment to ensure that everybody has these basic human needs, then work would be a contribution, and no longer remain a task. Ultimately, work will become a means of gratification for people.

Empathic Organizational Culture

We are on a path where the population within the current operating system, could drive us to scarcity. So, we need to be concerned about limits to growth. It is time to recognize that a tech mindset without appropriate empathy and organizational culture, and human skills, is a sociological disaster.

“Conscious businesses can be a great vehicle for social change and human change and make positive contributions to the planet.”

Be Open to Possibilities

Kimberly believes that when somebody says that something is impossible, 1% can’t imagine how to do it, but 99% simply don’t know if they could. Therefore, be open to the possibility that something outside of your experience and knowledge can be possible.

It is important to accept our limitations as our problems grow faster than our ability to deal with them.

Kimberly’s vision for work in 2045 is groundbreaking. It will be amazing if we are able to achieve her vision in the coming years. Check out the interview here: