Digital Disruption

One year ago, I wrote a blog post entitled, “A Personal Crossroads : Choosing Light or Darkness:

We have been seduced by the “American Dream” for the past 20+ years, borrowed money we couldn’t afford, bought things we didn’t need and speculated wantonly in the pursuit of more and more. Avarice and stupidity at their respective best. Humanity at it’s collective worst.

So, we are at a crossroads.

My brother-in-law once described the choice we face as follows:  “Can’t keep propping up a dead dog .. At some point you bury it and buy a puppy and raise it differently.”

Are we ready to bury this dead dog? Or will we simply continue to prop it up via additional loans to the Big Three, the banks, over-leveraged credit card holders, … the list continues. At what cost?

Looking a little more deeply, this crossroads and choice is a fundamentally spiritual one.

Some see this as simply the symptoms of another speculative bubble. “The market will correct itself.” The US taxpayer will pay for all of this greed and nothing needs to change. We’ll return to times of plenty once we’ve ridden out this current storm.

I believe we are being given a huge opportunity to change the game. To abandon the dominance of our selfish nature and to embrace a new world where giving back and caring for others is the path to our redemption. We have the opportunity to temper the destructive nature within ourselves where personal gain triumphs over everything else. We are being given the change to balance it with empathy, concern and care for others …

What has transpired over the past year? Did we choose the path of Light? Or did we just continue down the familiar road of Darkness? Here’s an example of this huge game-changing opportunity that I wrote about one year ago:

I’ve written several times about charity:water as they continue to innovate to help the 1 billion people on Earth who do not have access to clean drinking water. It’s a major problem that has major repercussions for health, education, woman’s rights and empowerment across the globe.

Their most recent campaign idea, mycharitywater.org, launched at the end of August.

Their vision was ambitious, crystal clear and simple:

Water changes everything. Our vision is simple and ambitious: clean, safe drinking water for everyone on the planet. Welcome to mycharity: water.

Charity:water built an online fundraising tool that enabled individuals to launch their own personal campaigns to help solve this 1 Billion person problem. Over 17,000 people have launched their own personal campaigns and, as of today, the collective fundraising efforts of these 17,000 people and their personal networks have yielded a phenomenal result:

• $1,024,112 raised
• 16,854 donations received
• Average of $60.76 was donated
• Charity:water’s efficient well-drilling operations ensure that every $20 raised, provides water to one person for 20 years. Thus, the total raised to-date via the mycharitywater campaign will provide 51,205 people with clean, safe drinking water for the next 20 years!

So, do you agree that we’ve chosen the path of Light? Or not? Please provide your feedback below in the comment section.

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