Amongst the hustle and bustle of our busy schedules, some of us sit back and consider deeper, reflective questions.
What is my purpose? Am I living my values? Have I made the world a better place? It is from this vantage point breakthroughs happen to alter the course of one’s destiny.
We take inventory of what will be best for us in the long run. We may even empathize with our impact on others by our actions. This moment of honesty can be humbling when compared to tiny dots in the night sky of our greater universe.
Perhaps this private or spiritual yearning is to leave something of our sweat equity behind so others can benefit and remember us by.
Before we continue our dialogue about inner conversations, the word legacy should be defined for this context – and I am not talking about the computer operating system.
Legacy, for this chat, is something that we leave behind for future generations. It is to bequeath, to bestow, to give. A legacy can be an idea or concept carried forward. It does not have to be a physical structure or object. It can encompass a change in or an opening up of beliefs. Legacy is a similar concept to inheritance and heritage.
While it can be something we inherit from our parents and pass to our children, heritage can more so refer to material and economic gifting while legacy refers to an emotional or cultural inheritance. In other words, legacy can include expanding the circle from our immediate family to the human family.
If we look back in time, we remember from our history books that during the industrial revolution, production advancement grew at an exponential rate. Moore’s law told us that computer technology doubles every two years. But, where does this leave humanity in the big picture? Surely humanity as a collective has not advanced at the same rate as technology.
Should we overall be measured to the same standard, metrics or KPI as the Industrial Revolution or the Information Age? If we were to use Moore’s Law to compare the emotional advancement of the human species by doubling its e-capacity every two years, our lives would be far different today. Would our priorities be in the same places?
Have we concentrated equally on the development and transformation of our human race as compared to technological advancement? It could be argued that the expansion of one phase is needed for the progression of the other.
The digital age is a far cry from the stone tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. The advent of the modern printing press assisted in information distribution: this printing press increased literacy, but only to those more affluent. Universities and libraries expanded and, the sharing of knowledge became prevalent, leading to the Renaissance.
Teletype, telephone, radio and television further grew the circle of communication to where we find ourselves today: the internet of things. Handheld communication devices, a research library of sorts, offer data at the speed of approximately six (6) seconds. Or less.
Photographs, videos and audio go viral from cellular phones from all around the world; six degrees of separation now become six seconds of data transfer that can be sent from anywhere on the planet to multiple individuals simultaneously. Access to information has now increased exponentially to allow for interaction instantaneously.
Today’s man, or woman, will have to keep up with what content is important, relevant as well as most credible. Websites and apps, like tutors, are available to assist – like the prophets were in Moses days – but with the good news that tablets produced today are much lighter.
Vast amounts of energy and resources are allocated to innovation for market share, profits, and consumer convenience. Yet, will we use today’s tools and technologies to also care for our well being so that we can design and carry out our positive legacy?
With stress and burnout common amongst executives and entrepreneurs as a way of life, will we also utilize all available app’s as guides to further our emotional and social maturity? In other words … in addition to asking “Siri” or “Alexa” to make our life easier, will we challenge ourselves to do the internal work to grow beyond our comfort zone?
Apps, like an alarm clock, can keep us on a timely regiment related to expanding our personal evolution to enlightenment. We have more access today to volumes of research at our fingertips to align with our purpose and create an evolved future. Thus, technology can serve our betterment and collective transformation if we allow it.
We are long past the Bronze and Iron Age, and capable of much more in our emotional intelligence and our relationship with humanity. Today’s digital age can be a step towards wisdom, beyond data and numbers. Technology’s conveniences, from video conferencing to meditations, can assist us in doing our daily inner work.
Perhaps one perspective of mobile technology and cyberspace is that it is an electronic halo available for our awareness, education and consciousness.