Less Rush, More Balance. A Loving Equilibrium.

Several months ago I was in London for a meeting. It was 730am.

Crossing London Bridge was a woman pushing a buggy. She was smartly dressed. For the City. Her young toddler, curled up, sleeping. Heavy, as little children sleep.

She was in a hurry. Walking fast.

Where to?

I don’t know.

Maybe…

To drop the toddler at childcare. To rush to the desk. To rush through the day. To rush back to childcare. To rush back home. To collapse exhausted. And repeat.

What a sad predicament.

And I am not judging.

Whatever the specifics of her journey that day - of which I know nothing - many of us are running on the hamster wheel of life, racing so fast we miss what’s important.

Work is important. We earn, we chat, we meet, we get out of the house, we feel useful, we ARE useful. But beyond this we’re chasing. Chasing financial tails. Chasing this and chasing that. It’s exhausting even writing about it.

A great crunch is coming. Many jobs will disappear.

By one estimate, 100% of small and medium sized businesses in the US will disappear over the coming three years. That’s about 25m companies.

But with this great churn comes opportunity. The 25m companies will be replaced by 25m new companies. Maybe more.

Hopefully more.

We all have talent, skills, wisdom, ideas, creativity, energy - things we can give, things which are important to help others.

Where we help others, we exchange value.

This is how we earn money; by doing useful things. Helping people with things they don’t want to or can’t do. Or creating things they might need.

The coming great crunch might force many of us to tap into our innate pools of creativity and ingenuity. We might need to forge a new path, to create our own opportunity. I don’t pretend this will easy. Or fun. Not all the time, anyway.

But it’s a path rich with opportunity; opportunity to meet necessity.

And it’s a path rich with human and social opportunity too.

Sure, it will not be easy for the woman on the bridge to substitute whatever salary she might earn going to work in the big bad City. Maybe she’ll be forced to earn less, but in so doing might find she (or he or whoever) can live more.

Is this a trade we’ll all be forced to swallow, to accept, to learn to love?

Would it be so bad?

Less London Bridge first thing in the morning. Less sleeping toddlers in their push chairs. Less racing to and through a day behind the desk, sweating and toiling to line someone else’s pockets. Less racing home eating, talking and collapsing. And repeating.

Balance.

Priorities.

Values.

A loving equilibrium.