It’s today, not tomorrow. Can you cope?

It’s today, not tomorrow. Can you cope?

One of our many astute Daily Paradox readers points out the development of algorithms to optimise bus routes and soon to run driverless buses. His purpose is simple. He wants to make it clear that what is happening now is causing imminent job losses and way-of-life adaptations.

We are living the changes technology brings, not foretelling them. From carrier pigeon to WhatsApp our flexibility is being tested as never before. We need to cope.

Impossible to tell if D Trump has woken up but the rest of the world certainly has. Climate change is not a conspiracy, nor a scientist’s aberration. It is here and it is 50 inches of rain in four days. As we sympathise with the poor people who have lost home, comfort, and, as some will see it, all semblance of future, we must wake up to the need to cope with rising water levels, greater storms and catastrophic rain precipitation. We need to cope.

We see anxiety bordering despair in the number of people coming to us who are uncertain, lacking confidence, unsure about their futures. These worries stretch their work performance first, their home life second. They sometimes seem even to threaten their common-sense sanity. They are in serious distress. Whether robot or storm, what are they to do?

There are no magic formulae that dissolve these problems and produce light and peace. We all have to cope. We do that from birth to death. Some do it better than others. What differentiates the good copers from the not-so-good copers is their sense of purpose. Finding an objective in your life – your Tree on the other side of the Field – lights up your priorities in a way that makes coping with change smoother. It puts you in charge.

There are six basic rules about coping.

Know who you are. Not in some fortune-telling, box-ticking way but deeply who you are. Our warts are not only important, they are valuable, too. Our inconsistencies are what make us human. They are not there to be smoothed out but to be understood and used to sharpen our intellect and ramp up our Emotional Intelligence. EI is at an all-time low today.

Know what you want. Sounds selfish but selfish is survival. It comes first. Hard on its heels come other people – society. You connect with only a tiny part of it but your connecting is what makes you succeed or fail. Communication is at an all-time low, too.

Know your destination. We call it Purpose and Tree. It is no soft option. Most of those who explore with us to find their purpose say it is the hardest thing they have ever done. Knowing your destination is more important even than reaching it. There’s a Paradox for you.

Know the route and the equipment you need for the journey. Being ill-equipped may be brave but it is foolish. Your equipment includes the development of your strengths, the most powerful thing you can do. Maps and equipment for the future are woefully inadequate.

Know how to be creatively thoughtful. In many ways this is the most important tool for your journey. It enables you to perceive the relationships that matter, to initiate and control, and to get round problems rather than taking them head on. The heavy lifting of the Victorian Era is not being adequately replaced by heavy thinking in the Digital Era.

Know the key to a happy, fulfilled life. This is wisdom. It is not age-related but thought-related. If you have a discipline of thinking you will become wise. The key is the questions you ask yourself and others. “We are what we eat, we become what we think, we can be what we want.”

Coping is not getting through a day or getting through a life, it is shaping the future. You will almost certainly be present in the future for a long time, possibly forever.

So your coping today is the world’s coping tomorrow.