GOOD TIMES A-COMING!

Hurray! The ten years described as The Decade From Hell by TIME magazine are ending. This is a momentous thing. In fact, I personally am more excited about this second decade of the 21st Century than I ever was about the dawn of 2000 with all its hyped up Y2K fears. Not that a sizable segment of the population isn't trying to sell a doom and gloom vision of the immediate and forseeable future. A good friend of mine, who used to be an optimist, has apparently come under the influence of the right wing torrent of Obama hatred and belief in the decline and fall of the American way of life.

He writes:

The Republic is in decline and there are perhaps 9-10 trends/factors/forces that could really whack us more badly or derail us entirely this decade.

Sorry, but I don't buy it. Not that there won't be challenges. We are in a period of perhaps our greatest transformation. Economic, social, political transformation. There will be stumbles as with any major paradigm shift. Some people will be hurt by holding on to the old beliefs and behaviors despite the changes. But others will triumph beyond their wildest dreams by seizing the opportunities that will appear. And who are those people who are most resisting the change, kicking and screaming as they are dragged into what I like to think of as a do over of the New Millennium. The old guard, the fat cats who have been purring throughout it all with huge bonuses and larger shares of the nation's wealth. Of course they want the status quo--they're at the top of the heap now and see themselves headed in one direction only as more and more people participate in living their dreams. And so they lie and scheme and finance radical radio and poisonous blogs.

Of course these enemies of the Republic don't want universal health care--it may level the playing field a bit. Oh, boo hoo, it may raise my taxes to cover thirty million more people who don't now have coverage. But think about this--just a handful of those thirty million, unencumbered by untreated conditions or scrambling to pay for medical services or not dying too young, may be exactly the people who innovate us out of the most serious of our current challenges and obstacles. Accounts of the early life of Bill Gates indicate he had some health issues. What if his parents couldn't afford superior health care? Or Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak?

There are some who have lost faith in our ability to innovate ourselves out of any problem, and this includes some in the environmental movement as well as some avid anti-government diehards. But the truth is that just one aspect of this new era has the capacity to change the entire game. The Internet. I have written before about hardly anyone understanding its true power and significance. Imagine a world in which everyone is potentially connected to everyone else--instantly. Well that world is happening right now, and those who learn to navigate through the overwhelming piles of information bombarding us every moment will have amazing success.

Rather than nine or ten trends that could "whack us badly," I see trends that can lift us dramatically, propel us forward into a wondrous decade of accomplishment and personal power. Does big government get in the way of some of this? In some ways, absolutely. But you can allow yourself to get derailed railing against the abuses of government or stay on track and reap the benefits of the profound changes coming.

One such trend, that many upcoming entrepreneurial success stories will be stimulated and inspired by is the increasing devotion to personal service, to human contact in this increasing age of electronic communication. As I wrote over thirty years ago during the very initial stages of the computer revolution, with more dehumanization in the culture, those people who can deliver superior human services will triumph. And despite the unbiquitous robotic computer generated voices answering most customer service questions nowadays, there are an ever-growing number of companies actually training real, live people in dealing with clients and customers with intelligence and courtesy. This will be an increasing trend in the new decade--and it means jobs and a more pleasant business and personal environment for all of us.

And more and more people are thinking "outside the box" to deal with the major challenges of the day. Paying for extra healthcare coverage? How about major taxation of all the rich foreigners who come to the U.S. for our better medical facilities and practitioners?

So my suggestion for what I will continue to think of as the start of The New Millennium is to party like there's no tomorrow with the certainty that tomorrow will be even better.

Happy New Everything!

Jerry

And by the way, this new year, new decade, and self-created New Millennium means for me a new approach to life and my career. Read all about it on my other blog,

www.MoneyloveBlog.com under

PROSPERITY COACHING--RESTARTING THE

NEW MILLENNIUM.