A Vision for a Thrivable Future

It is often said that most people reject change. I don’t believe this is true for all change, only for change where we are not in control, and where the change takes us somewhere else than we want to go.

If we, on the other hand, consider change which takes us where we want to go, and in a way where we feel that we are in control, I am quite sure that most people will do what they can to support that change.

We, humankind, are facing great challenges, possibly bigger than ever before, including social, environmental and economic. They cloud the horizon in very dark colours. The challenges are complex, integrated and, on top of it all, urgent. With the perspective above regarding our attitude to change, it becomes clear that we have to work hard to describe the desirable end state of the change needed, despite all it’s inherent uncertainty. Without a defined end state which is attractive, and in addition, a path which is neither very clear, widespread embrace of the changes needed can hardly be expected.

There are a number of frameworks describing “a sustainable future”, for instance the four system conditions of the Natural Step. These are excellent in many ways, but the drawback is that they primarily describe what we must not do in the future compared to what we do today. So, in essence, what they provide is a more constrained room for humanity compared with today’s society. This is of course not a good starting point for describing an inspiring future.

Other approaches start by describing all the terrible things that will happen if we continue on a business as usual path, such as the book “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas, or some of these scenarios from Forum for the Future . The targeted future is then described as the alternative scenario where we avoid these roadblocks. This is also a defensive approach. We must be able to do better.

A recent collaborative book project curated by Jean Russell, “Thrivability: A Collaborative Sketch” , takes its point of departure instead in different aspects of the type of society we would like to create. This is very interesting, and I think we need to do a lot more of this type of work in order to reach the levels of mass mobilization needed for BIG change.

“Thrivability” is indeed a great concept. It is much richer in meaning than  “Sustainability” which defensively means that we, as people, society, businesses, shall survive. Thrivability means that we put in place the prerequisites for humankind to “thrive”, to continue to develop to something better. Thrivability is about  searching, finding and building a flourishing and richer society for tomorrow.

We need to continue to draw better and better maps of what a thrivable society means, so that we get a roadmap which is inspiring and compelling for all of us to follow.

What aspects of a future thrivable society are hardest to describe?

“Thivability: A Collaborative Sketch” makes attempts to describe a number of key themes and concepts from a thrivable perspective. Below are a number of additional concepts that I believe are crucially important to describe and discuss in order to paint an understandable vision of a thrivable future:

Economy, Finance, Business, Citizenship, Relationship, Entrepreneurship, Change, Trust, Empowerment, Freedom, Justice, Equity, Equality, Responsibility, Governance, Stewardship, Time

Would you like to help?