Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

By vinodnarayan on June 5, 2018 • ( 0 )

The decision for me to read ‘Abundance’ had a reason. But once I started I was wondering why was I so late in reading it. It was released 6 years ago, in 2012 and in that 6 years I have had so many bouts and even long spells of pessimism and the sense of scarcity and lack of belief in a future. I was more boggled by the hopelessness of things than by the opportunities of where we are now.

Abundance is a must read and that I don’t say because my reason to read was me joining Singularity University cofounded by the co-author Peter Diamandis. I know there will be some cynics who will clinch to that possibility. But it is not true, I ask you to read it because, if you don’t read, it is a miss for you.

What we terribly lack as a society now is that optimistic outlook of the future. The news media and social media bombards us with what is wrong with our world. I am not saying that we should not be informed about what is wrong. But we are bombarded with repetitions of same news. And with every bad news the media does a rerun of every bad news in the past.

And while the news media gets its TRP and the social media gets its eyeballs, we are blocking the good things as if they do not matter anymore. We are not letting any drop of optimism get into us.

I say this because I was pulled into and had become part of a pessimist view of the world a year back. I would like a magnet be attracted to every awful news I hear and put my rage in a blog post. Then I would share it on Social Media and assume a write-raider persona and debate and argue with people and ideologies. A year back I stopped that. I stopped because I was tired. I was fed up of craving for news that can be trolled and polled on. I stopped following news and also stoped looking at the negatives of the world. But even a conscious effort is sometimes not enough because even after that I was sucked into it many a times.

To see the optimistic world around us, we need a change in mindset. There are many ways for it. And one of it is a book like ‘Abundance’. Co-written with Steven Kotler Abundance gives us a view of not just the positive of the times we live, but also what we can do together as a society in the path of science, technology and the research in health, space and more.

There are no limits or boundaries in achieving Abundance. There are only opportunities.

But as we know fear and contemplating all possible eventualities are part of us. And yes with opportunities, also comes questions and debates on what the future is going to be and how it will look like and what threats can be in store there. And that discussions will continue and we will find reasonable grounds to move ahead. What we cannot disagree is the extent of change we will encounter, and the ability for these changes to dramatically improve lives to new spaces and areas.

We live in a time when there is exponential opportunities the power to trigger which, has been handed to even small groups. It is high time we teach Abundance and impact ventures to the next generation.

Read it and Read it to you kids, ponder over the possibilities and then embark on a journey to change the world.