"One fine day" - great things happened in 2020 - and why you should keep working hard, so that you have an advantage when the pandemic is over

I am genuinely tired, now a year or so in to the 2020-2021 pandemic, to see so many emails, blog posts, and LinkedIn posts starting out with things like:

"this past year has been incredibly hard...."

This reiteration of negativity does no one good, and gives some kind of base reason for the excuses that usually follow.

That sentence literally doesn't do anyone any good. Every person on the planet knows that it has been hard. It is the most obvious point that someone could make over the past year or so. Frankly, it's a lazy opening. It's also an instant turn off to whatever comes next. And whatever does come next, I genuinely don't know what it is - because I never read beyond something that starts in such a way.

The truth is that incredibly wonderful things have happened during 2020-2021. Some people have done amazing things. Some companies have been more successful than they have in their entire history.

In fact, one of the most wonderful pieces of any art-form came out this year - the release of the movie version of American Utopia by David Byrne of Talking Heads fame. In fact, in my book, it's the best form of any art-form released in recent times.

As the headline on the image says, this really is a masterpiece. Not a modern masterpiece, but a masterpiece of all times. I urge anyone reading this post to watch it. I found it most heart-warming, inspirational, and so many other superlatives. A literal stir of emotions. My jaw was agape just five seconds in to it. It is like nothing else that I have ever seen/heard/experienced in any format.

And VERY unlike me, I have now watched it around eight or nine times. I rarely watch anything more than once.

I'd go as far to say that it is also the film of the year (as it is classed as a film). It should win an Oscar if it fits into any available categories.

It has teaching, humour, wonderful music, amazing choreography (and I HATE dancing!), and all on just one set where you see no wires. As I said, there is nothing like it.

Here is just one song from the film, 'One Fine Day'. This song has been the thing that proves to me that despite the current world downturn (for most), there are wondrous days ahead for us. It gives me great hope. I am pretty sure that it will give others the same feeling, too.

So why write this?

OK, so why am I writing this piece? It's because, while many are worrying about what the future holds, there is a section of society working just as hard, or even harder, that they did previously. I would put myself in that category. And most of my colleagues at Embryo, too. Not all, mind, but most.

There are plenty of wonderful things happening to give you the inspiration to carry on working hard, ready for the brilliant future that lies ahead - in both life and business. Don't be fooled by easy-to-consume negative news stories. Misery loves company (one of my favourite phrases). It's so, so easy for people to write negative LinkedIn messages, rather than create content that could inspire others - either through their own success, or through inspirational things that they've seen.

Just look what happened with GameStop shares recently. As an avid Reddit user, I saw so many posts - not understanding what the heck they were on about - for quite a while. However, as I delved more in to the subject matter, and saw the wonderful way that people came together to teach certain hedge funds a lesson, it gave me a peek of what I believe the future to be. And that is an enlightening future.

Exciting times indeed

As I wrote in a recent post on the Embryo blog (Why this is the very most exciting time in all of human history), we really are living on the cusp of a change of life that will make the pandemic a very distant memory. I mean this, of course, at the macro level. Those that have had people they know die from COVID-19 (as have I), will not forget it for a long time.

But, the future for all of us in the west is one so bright, yet we don't seem to be grasping it on the whole. It really will be only a matter of a few years until wonderful things are done with science that will change how we all live.

Not only science though. The greatly improved knowledge of every 'node' (person), added to insights from data that we have never had before - and from increased computing power of quantum computing - means that things that we never thought could happen will reach us so much quicker than we think they will.

I'm talking of various things from universal income (or some variant of it) to self-driving taxis, to complete remote working, to 4-day working weeks - jus the tip of the iceberg. So many things will change because we will have the power (data plus computing power) to know the outcomes of such things in a way we have never been able to do before.

"You may say I'm a dreamer..." and all that, but our future (in the west) is as rosy as the world has ever been. Even those in poorer countries will make massive strides in reducing poverty, although many years behind us still, unfortunately.

However, that "one fine day" is very close indeed. Be ready for it. Others are.

#onefineday #workhard #behappy