Change The Future

Change The Future

Have you ever had an opportunity to make a difference? Maybe it’s simply something you can do today that shows results today. Maybe it’s something you choose to do that have lifelong impacts, examples to the future generations. Or simply choosing to be a difference that makes a difference.

Everything we do impacts all of our tomorrows.  Think Disney’s “Tomorrowland”. We first saw the Florida version with our kids and their friends about 1988. Made an impact on me thinking about what we do today changes the future. The past is not only a glorious fog of memory, it’s replete with things that have changed us in so many ways. Who we are today is built on the shoulders of thinker’s and do’ers of our past!

It’s like saving money. You religiously put it away and it keeps making money as it’s invested. Someday that Penny will become a Dollar, or two. Multiply that by the length you keep it earning and those few cents could set you and your family up for generations to come. That’s Changing the Future! How? By challenging what we do today and think about the ramifications of our choices for tomorrow!

I’m thinking about some special people in my life who invested their time, energy and calling, to reach out to me. Some brought challenges to growth, and I either became better or would succumb to the flotsam of life. Other’s brought inspiration for tomorrow, and I so remember soaking it up sitting on the edge of my seat! Still, others were simply the rock we all clamber on to reach the next rung in the ladder of our future.

Many of them are gone. This is a sad statement. They are gone, but their impact has lasting results that only time will tell what the future will do with their input. And they will never know what they accomplished! This speaks of mature leadership. You keep doing not knowing what the end results will be like! But you plow through the undergrowth and thickets to reach the promised open trail!

This morning, all of these thoughts made me think of a song Pete Seeger wrote and performed for the first time the year of my birth…another special reason to enjoy 1955!

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?

Pete wrote three verses, and someone in the audience later added the last two verses and made the song a full circle. Pete wrote about the flowers picked by young girls, the young girls taking a husband, and the young men going to war. Joe Hickerson added the circle of soldiers ending up in graveyards, and the graveyards covered in flowers. Pete died in 2014, age 94…Joe is still living and now resides in Portland, OR…just a few hours south of me. Pete shared the royalties with Joe from that time forward. Amazing! The next generation adding to the prior generation and producing a song that still brings new listeners every generation.

This is what I’m talking about!

I remember singing this in the back seat of our car as we traveled on vacation and long trips to the country. It was the ballad singing of our youth. Mom would try to teach us harmony, I’m not sure we ever learned. Dad would wait patiently for us to finish and then start on one of his crooner country favorites. We sometimes joined in, and sometimes we simply waited until he was through and then pick another song. We never listened to the radio. Nor did we have pre-recorded music on some device that was just learning to exist. No. We sang as a family and none of us made music our career!

Today. I still sing while driving down the road and mostly when there’s no one else to hear…

Technology has changed the way our families connect with each other. I’m not sure it was ever thought that the future would look so different than it did back in the 50’s and 60’s. Yet, technology is changing constantly so who knows what it will do to us in the next decade! It may be we all live like the Jetsons… Quien Sabe?

A contact of mine makes it a habit on his travels to take pictures of the gravesite and headstones of famous people. This made me think of all those who have made an impact and though we have their final resting place, their true impact is what we can thank them for here in the future.

How can we ever repay the sacrifice?

By adding to their work and build it better for the next generation. That’s how you change the future! Invest yourself with talents and skills to add to what you were blessed to enjoy, and make this world a better place for generations to come… Who knows, what you have to add may just be the thing that will help the next Einstein, Hawking, or Mother Teresa!

David wrote these wonderful words of promise…

I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. (Psalms 139:14 NKJV)

Maybe the thoughts today were spawned by a tweet I thought through yesterday morning as I began to consider the question (why am I here) with an answer:

“At some point, you realize what you are doing is what God intended for you. Enjoy the calling. Stretch your wings and fly with it. You were made especially for your situation…” @MikeGurley

You were created for this moment. Spread your wings and fly with it! Go change the future!