Because We Can

If the future were left to those who believed the status quo was the best that we could be, we would never evolve to find our full potential.

It’s not the sane and the rational who move us to new abilities. It is those who refuse to accept anything less, those who do not know it cannot be done, and the sheer willpower of the stubborn who declined to be defeated.

You have heard me state before, and it is true that up until 1900 knowledge doubled about every hundred years. Today it doubles roughly every 13 months. Except for some newer technologies. Nanotechnology and a few others are still doubling every 2 to 3 years. From our healthcare systems to our space programs, to our better understanding of our world, and even to the better understanding of each other, our lives are improved through the expedited growth we are enjoying in knowledge.

This is not the time to dig in heels and claim we have to slow down just because we don’t know or understand. Now is the time, like none other since the Elizabethan era, when we should learn everything we can, do everything we can, and find ways to help everyone we can. Why do we do this? Because we can, and now we are allowed to grow and be part of the solution like no other time in history.

For millennia, governments have feared change. Even our own government wanted to keep items such as breaking the sound barrier out of the news and ventures into space limited to the government people charged with doing so. Now government partners with the private sector to fulfill our future in not only spacecraft and space travel, but also a whole host of other initiatives which used to be the government’s domain.

This incredible resurgence and growth in knowledge are fueled in large part by significant companies once again willing to perform research to first discover and build the items that will then, at a later date, give them monetary success. The advantages we gave up when we curtailed our willingness to invest in unknown research are slowly coming back. We are not the smartest nation. We are not the best-educated nation. We are not the healthiest nation. Yet, hopefully, we are the nation back on the path and going back to where we’ve been before.

Author: Mike Balof

A retired Air Force Master Sergeant, Mike used to lay in bed at night and worry about what would happen if his plant closed or found himself without a job. One day his plant closed. Rather than panic and hysteria (OK, maybe a little) Mike found himself carried away on the adventure of his life. Mike started with the best job he ever had working at Home Depot. He spent 8 years working with job seekers at a local workforce center, helping them to find employment. He then started his own company developing courses, writing books and urging others to follow their own paths into the future. Mike holds a Master of Arts in Adult Education and Training and a Bachelor of Business Management, earned through the University of Phoenix and an AAS degree in Electronics Systems Technology from the Community College of the Air Force. Mike is a member of the Delta Mu Delta Business Honor Society. View all posts by Mike Balof