What Does WWW Mean to You?
The first thing that comes to mind when I see the letters ‘www’ is the world wide web, commonly known as the internet. It was the 20th century invention that has changed everything – the way we live, work, play, connect and communicate. While speeding up our lives considerably, helping us in many ways, and stressing us in others, it has also given rise to four new freedoms with which our children will grow up: to know, to go, to do and to be. Never before have we had so much freedom to shape our lives and our children will have even more freedom to shape their destinies.
However, the three letters ‘www’ also stand for winger, whiner and wishful thinker. These are characteristics that could stand in the way of creating a good life. They are typical of people who recognise that there is a problem and respond by throwing up their hands and saying “Something should be done!” instead of taking responsibility and saying “I must do something.”
The latter statement is the one we want to bring our children up with. We are entering an Age of Possibility, a completely new era in human history, which will be filled with many challenges, opportunities, contradictions and choices. We are going to go through a time of exponential change which we need to embrace and manage positively so that our children view their future with optimism and passion despite the problems that the planet faces.
I am reminded of a quote from that wonderful film, Dead Poet’s Society, in which Robin Williams plays the teacher, John Keating. In the intense, goosebump-making scene where he is down on his knees surrounded by his students, listening to his every word with rapt attention, he quotes from poet Walt Whitman:
“O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” Keating goes on to implore his students to live up to the motto of Carpe Diem – to sieze the day.
We do need to bring up our children to sieze the day, to live with zest and passion. They need to know that just by being born they have changed the world, particularly your world, in a remarkable way, and that as they mature they will, indeed, contribute a verse. Their skills, values and attitudes will determine just what that verse will be.
NIKKI BUSH
Creative parenting expert, inspirational speaker and co-author of Future-proof Your Child (Penguin, 2008), and Easy Answers to Awkward Questions (Metz Press, 2009)
nikki@brightideasoutfit.co.za
www.brightideasoutfit.com
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