In Search of Optimism

Having lived in Asia for nearly a decade, I wasn’t traveling much the past three years and mostly followed the news from a western perspective, watching us destroy many of the values we worked for centuries to build in the process.

All the more I was relieved to see on my recent travels to Southeast Asia , India, and the Middle East , that there is hope and that not the entire world has gone mad.

The depression I see now in Europe (not only at an economic/financial, but also at a mental level), has affected many entrepreneurs, corporations, and even old family businesses, who are either downsizing or relocating , selling out , filing for insolvency , or simply winding down. Regardless of whether such despair was inflicted by design and/or is happening by accident, the resulting effects are slowly but surely becoming tangible for the ordinary citizen.

At this juncture, and especially in a now post Covid world, I would thoroughly encourage anyone (who is able) to quickly go and visit places outside the Western hemisphere, to personally witness, see and FEEL the difference.

In none of the places I visited did I feel the same doom and gloom which is currently hanging over Europe (and other associated Western nations). De-dollarization could hit the US much harder than they’re willing to admit and this time it’s real, alive and ongoing – plus: it’s fully embraced by a well educated and quite aware society in the Middle and the Far East.

Please don’t misunderstand me – I was born and brought up in the heart of Europe. I loved every second of it. This is not meant to be a rant about the downfall of western civilisation. In fact, I think there is much we have brought and yet can bring to the world, but, if you’re a somewhat forward looking entrepreneur or a business leader, you need to see the reality for what it is:

Right now we’re sitting ducks, waiting to be shot. We owe it to ourselves to answer the question: why not embrace the wind and fly away?

As the world is reorganizing itself looking for new leadership and trying to rekindle lost values, I asked myself: how did the East (at least at large) manage to better weather a global pandemic with the many financial, societal and environmental challenges, yet coming out of it with a much more positive sentiment for the future?

I think it has to do with the engrained family ties and values in the setup of Eastern Cultures combined with a longer term outlook of life across multiple generations and a less binary view . Family is everything and every generation has to play their role to elevate the overall family tribe to the next level – it doesn’t even matter what religion you have.

Culture beats religion and Family beats history.

Try explaining to someone in Asia or the Middle East the concept of 112 genders in 2023 . It wouldn’t just be considered pointless, or even morally offensive, it would simply be practically meaningless as the family unit ensuring the future of an ancestral lineage isn’t something you can negotiate away or mess with.

Perhaps this is why certain cultures exhibit a certain type of tolerance towards time, yet are emerging with an incredible outlook for years to come.

The positive thoughts in hopeful anticipation of a better future is certainly something this trip has taught me, so I for one will make better use of this last free stimulus available to us all on the planet – wherever we are.

It’s called optimism.?