What Got Us Here Won’t Get Us There… It’s Time to Start Anew

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”                                                                              

~Albert Einstein*

As we move through our lives and encounter new situations, new challenges, we develop ways of handling them. Over time, if those approaches are successful enough, often enough, we “cement” them in place as if they were THE only solution or approach to that situation, challenge, or problem.

Until it doesn’t work.

And I believe every single one of us eventually hits that wall. We come upon a situation or challenge that we’ve successfully navigated – likely multiple times – in the past, and our approach no longer works. “What got us here won’t get us there.”**

It’s not just an individual experience. We experience this in groups, as well… in families, businesses, communities, and other kinds of organizations. I believe it’s a foundational factor in what we are experiencing today … unrest, polarization, hate, crime, destruction…

We thought we were building it right

When we begin to recognize we are in an unhealthy place, an undesirable place (usually of our own creation – at least at some level – perhaps in cooperation with others), we begin to experience pain.

When we can’t manage, deal with, or eradicate the pain, we begin to seek relief from it. These actions – sometimes showing up as “acting out” – become outward manifestations of our state of dis-ease with what is, and sometimes turns inward manifesting as actual disease in our bodies.

Pain Numbing Behaviors

We numb, we hurt ourselves, we lash out to hurt others, we judge, we taunt, we break, we steal, we smash, we hit… And we find ourselves unable to fully express what we are feeling and our sense of inadequacy or inability to remedy what we’ve created or agreed to. Others may also feel ill equipped or inadequate or not responsible for responding to or assisting us in dealing with our pain…

And our belief states and feelings become contagious. The dis-ease spreads at varying speeds and manifests in numerous ways. Either through action or inaction, we are all in some way complicit in and responsible for what we have created, what we are currently experiencing. And it’s been true for all of time.

Unable to Contain it… We are Leaking

What we are experiencing today is an outward expression of all this pent-up anger, fear, distrust, dis-ease, helplessness, our sense of being all alone in this with no one coming to help or stop the insanity. We’ve recognized that what we built to get us “here” isn’t working, wasn’t a good approach after all, and isn’t going to get us to the new “there” we all claim we want.

It boils over and is expressed in rage and violence and hate and destruction… it is expressed in actual illness.

I think what we are experiencing today – with COVID and with all the racial unrest and protests and violence and looting – are manifestations of the depth of our illness and dissatisfaction with what we’ve created -- globally. There’s an underlying knowing that the societies and businesses and systems we’ve built were eating us alive and undermining all the good we desire, all the good we are capable of.

We feel ill-equipped to come together in productive dialogue about what’s going on and how to think of it differently… to explore and imagine how we might unravel, deconstruct, and begin anew. There’s so much complexity and so many tentacles … the implications of tearing things down and starting over is too much to comprehend, and so in our sense of not knowing how to do it, we feel helpless at some level to change it.

Violence, Rage, and Destruction

And we react like caged animals who have been taunted and teased; at the first opening, we roar and rage and attack. We become physically ill as our discontent is manifest in our bodies, and everything begins to break down … individually, systemically, globally.

This is where we are now. We have a very real opportunity to begin again and renew… to be intentional about what we create going forward. We have a very real opportunity to choose to be different. 

This isn’t an “Us vs. Them” situation. This is about us… each and every one of us as individuals. And each and every one of us in community with each other, locally, nationally, and globally.

We Get to Choose

Every single day we have a choice about who we will be, what we will think, how we will show up, what we will take responsibility for, how we will react or respond to what others are doing… and if we choose to not be active players, and to look the other way when things are happening that aren’t aligned with our values and how we – as a collective – claim we want to live, then we are complicit in creating the insanity and the dysfunction and the toxicity of our existence.

We aren’t going ‘back to normal.’ So much of what we had come to think of as ‘normal’ is gone. It’s done. It’s not coming back. And in so many ways, that’s a really good thing. A lot of our previous ‘normal’ was not so good... Maybe we hesitate to admit it, in the absence of having a clear solution or idea to fix it, but we know it’s true.

It Isn’t Actually Coffee

Here’s just one, local, example. I moved to West Virginia for a job 10 years ago. When I first arrived, I was a bit startled by the number of billboards I saw – across the entire state – about gambling addiction and its impact on families and communities. Numerous messages about calling the 800# for treatment…

In many of the communities I’ve visited around the state, there are numerous “Coffee Perk” businesses nestled into every little ‘hole in the wall’ commercial spaces… and more popping up all the time. “Coffee Perk” is not a coffee shop; although I’m sure they do serve coffee. They are gambling establishments.

I don’t know exactly what they offer (I’ve never gone in one)… pull tabs, slots… Whatever the “game” the goal is the same – separate those people from as much of their money as possible, as quickly as possible with no concern over the damage and negative impact it will create for that person, his or her family, and eventually the community.

Clearly, there’s a buck (or many millions?) to be made here, so it’s an attractive “business” opportunity many will take advantage of. Never mind what happens when those people leave the establishment; they have free will to choose how to spend their time and money, right? We appear to be more concerned with ‘getting ours’ than we are with what’s good for our communities.  

“…if you block it, it will never exist…”

I read this in a book recently and I think it’s deeply relevant at this juncture in time:

The great Martha Graham once said to the dancer and choreographer Agnes de Mille, “There is a vitality, a life force . . . that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open!” (italics added; Silver, Tosha. It's Not Your Money (p. 22). Hay House. Kindle Edition.)

What I take from that is this: Each of us has been created uniquely. We all have talents, strengths, and gifts that allow us to make a unique contribution… and we need each and every one of us to show up as fully as possible and share what we have.

The greatest waste on the planet is that of human talent. When we sleepwalk through life, we are wasting our talents and withholding from the rest that which we might bring that would bring about change.

No One is Coming to Save Us

It’s not as if there’s some subset of the population that is here to take it all on and fix it for the rest of us. It’s fair to say that in way too many communities, states, and nations, we’ve come to recognize that the people in the “leadership positions” (and be clear – I use that term loosely, as too many of them are not demonstrating leadership, rather exerting power and acting on personal agendas) are not prepared to do what needs to be done. Many of them are clearly not prepared to or interested in helping us move into a better place.

Nor is there some unspoken message that says it’s ok for some of us to just hang out and go along for the ride, while a small group of others strives for change in a healthy way.  

We All Own a Piece…

I don’t think any one person has the solution. I think each of us holds a piece of a variety of solutions and the next step is to start finding others who are aligned with a vision for creating something new, better, healthier. Others have complementary pieces of the puzzle with whom we can collaborate and create and think and challenge and expand and build anew.

But the violence has to stop. The destruction has to stop. The hate and vitriol have to stop. We must be more open to new ideas, new perspectives. We need to be willing to sit down together – in groups small and large – and have actual conversations in which we seek to understand the others in the room. Where we are willing to share and willing to listen.

We Are One

At the very core of all of this, we are all people. Each and every one of us has gifts and talents. We have expertise and experience. We have ideas and skills. We have fears, worries, and insecurities. We have desires and dreams. We’ve all experienced trauma in some way; we all carry some residual pain. And I believe we all long for real connection, deeper meaning, and to know we are loved and accepted.

If that’s the only common ground we find, it’s still common ground – upon which we can build.

But isn’t it interesting, that while we have so many common desires and needs – we want to be safe, loved, heard, valued, included, accepted – we have so many ways of attempting to get those needs met. When our approaches clash, we jump to the conclusion that others are wrong because they don’t see or approach it the same way we do.  

The Emperor Has No Clothes!

We all see it, but we pretend we don’t; maybe we hope it will all go away or someone else will fix it. Here are just a few ways we’ve institutionalized insanity:

• We consider assisted suicide a crime, but we pretend that people who choose to poison themselves with cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol are just exercising their personal rights – not slowly committing suicide. And the companies that produce and sell those products are just engaged in business.
• We talk about obesity and diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol as deadly diseases and health crises… and we flock to the “all you can eat buffet” and open more and more fast food/quick serve restaurants on every corner. Again… just running a business!
• We want more convenience, so we create more single-use products and then we are appalled by the trash and plastic “islands” floating in our oceans.
• We complain about the state of our educational systems, but we don’t want to pay teachers more or invest in different educational experiences. Instead, we’ll pay athletes and celebrities (some of whom are famous for being famous!!) millions of dollars to play games and have their photos taken.
• We get very indignant when someone pokes their nose into our personal business, yet we imagine that every intimate detail of others’ lives is our business (think athletes, celebrities, musicians, other public figures).
• We pump livestock and farmland full of chemicals, supposedly to ensure they are healthy and grow bigger, or that crop yields are safe from pests and disease… then we wonder how our population is getting sick from all the unnatural chemicals we are ingesting in the process.  

I am generalizing here, a bit, and I know that not every single person on the planet is perpetuating these norms and practices; but for the moment, the scale of these unhealthy behaviors is tipped in the wrong direction – around the globe. And I’m not the only one commenting on it. I’ll include a link below to a recent article on HuffPost from Justin Trudeau that speaks to many of the same issues.

Some of these things – when viewed through a clear lens with a little distance – point to some level of insanity! It’s not all working, and we need to make some significant changes. We need to ask new questions, challenge our assumptions, consider new approaches.

I do believe there are more and more of us awakening to what’s really going on, asking uncomfortable questions, and examining our own behaviors to make changes that better align with who we say we want to be.

The Time is Now

A landscaper would tell you that the best time to plant a shade tree would have been 50 years ago. The next best time is now. The same can be said for the changes we need to make. It would be have better had we awakened to what we were creating 50 years ago and charted a different course back then. The next best time is now.

It’s time to build anew. We are the ones to do the work. I have some ideas about how we might get started. If you’re interested in that conversation, reach out to me – you can find me here on LinkedIn or at lauraprisc.com.

In closing, I ask this: What piece of the puzzle will you take?

*I’ve been told this quote may be wrongly attributed to Einstein. Regardless of who said it, the point is still valid.

** What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is a best-selling book by Marshall Goldsmith who has worked with numerous leaders needing to create behavioral, attitudinal, and mindset shifts in order to create new success in their lives and work. Definitely worth the read!

Link to HuffPost Article by Justin Trudeau in the Comments.