I’ve just come from TedX MidAtlantic 2017 and that has me thinking about equity, equality, what’s wrong with the world and how we might fix it. As a yogi, Star Wars Fan, and student of life, game theory, and the Tao; the answer is obvious.

We are out of balance.

My job as a creative, innovator strategist, I convince people to make cool things. It’s a lot of fun and totally awesome, but surprisingly difficult to get folks to step into their genius. One thing I know for certain is that creativity is fundamentally about connecting ideas and making something new.

Creativity is all about “AND”

Somewhere along the way, our (western) culture started to become all about exclusivity,  hierarchy, judging right from wrong, good from bad and in the process our focus has become increasingly focused on what we don’t have and what we should be. However, in our quest to have it all – we forget to appreciate the joy of enough.

Not building happiness neural pathways is a problem. We accept the default hierarchies that were handed to us by generations that did not have enough. When enough folks do that our reality stagnates. So what can we do?

Notice when you’re defaulting…

… to the patterns of behavior you inherited.

Look at the list below. Notice where you gravitate.  Many of were raised to believe one side is better than the other. That’s not true. The real magic lies in the joining of each side, in the spaces between and the combination of two.

There can be no giving without taking, no light without dark. Things that were once only a dream are now certain, just as those things that were once certain often dissolve into dreams.  In between our past and our future, we are present. Ok, I’ll stop sounding like yoga hopped up on a bunch of fortune cookies and leave you with one final thought.

The answer isn’t one or the other, the answer lies in an enthusiastic “yes, and!”