This year is election year in Sweden. That means a lot of promises from all involved. What comes out in the end we don’t know. But where will we actually be heading, as a society?
There was a great documentary on Swedish National television last week called “Politics without a goal“. This is not just something local for Sweden, it is something that is in effect all over the world.
For the past two election periods we have had the right wing ruling sweden after about 10 years of left wing ruling. To be honest I can barely see any difference in the direction they want to take. The nuances are so small and short sighted that either left or right sound so similar. But what is their goal? Where does either want to be in 30, 50 or 100 years from now? This was very clear in the past and got us to this point, but where do we go next? We have 8 hour work days, 40 hour work week, 4 consecutive weeks of vacation during summer month, common right to vote, we’re fairly equal even though we could get even better.
Is it all so good that we can’t envision what could be even better? We only look so far as for next election period to see what will happen to our own pockets in that time frame? From where we are today, what is our Utopia?
If we don’t have a vision, a Utopia, how do we know what to aim for? In politics it’s not hard for me to see why the far and ultra wings on either side are gaining ground. They have a clear picture of what they want which is easy to grasp for many people and identify with. The established parties and very much of the western world is nowadays very short sighted and focused on making money today. Is their, the established parties, path only visible through knowing their history? Even though they have a direction through history, do they know what they aim for? Or is it just shooting from the hip? What does their future Sweden, in this case, look like?
This short sightedness shows clearly in the environmental area where we are not making any substantial progress. The energy sector is also moving slowly. Work time and work load is almost going backwards. Equality both in gender and classes is also going backwards. It took less than a decade to put a man on the moon when they really wanted it, then what? Is everything so established around money and large corporations with their lobbies that we are moving back toward a world similar to pre WW1 where a few dictate the conditions for the rest of us?
What happened to our Utopia, no matter what it was? Where are we going now?
Do you know where you want to go or be? What can you do to either accelerate our current short sighted (my opinion) path or change it for [your own] better path?
Perhaps it is not the politicians who should nor can fix all of this, but you, by shaping your work place and surroundings. What is your Utopia?
What kind of work place do you dream of? How does work flow? What do you work on? Where do you work? For how long? How much vacation and when? How would you balance life? How equal is it? Or what are your values that you hold dear? What is your Utopia?