The Challenge
It seems like it's hard to get people's attention these days. Between everyone staring at screens all day to shortened attention spans to increased challenges building and maintaining healthy relationships, how can we make living a good life stand out?
There are many “challenges” that have come and gone and sometimes feel like the only time when the whole world is paying attention to and doing the same thing. It happens couple times a year when a certain (seemingly random) behaviour takes the internet and entire age or social groups by storm. These challenges often have people doing similar activities, raising awareness for the same cause, and posting it online using a similar hashtag or format. It's fun to see which ones become global or last for long periods of time. These challenges could be as helpful as the protest to protect the planet on fridays challenge (Fridays for the environment), they could be a raise awareness, funds and create tons of fun videos like the ice bucket challenge or they could be random like the dress up fancy and go to a movie challenge (#Gentleminions).
Do we have to make it a “challenge” to do simple things that would improve our own health and wellness and that of the people we love and care for? Do we need a challenge to be a good neighbour or to be kind and generous to the people we live around? I don't think we have to but it certainly wouldn't hurt!
The challenge as I see it, is in presenting the work that is most necessary, to the people that have the most available energy, attention, resources and time in a way that encourages them to participate. I think about how important it has been in my youth engagement work and speeches over the years to look at what's trending or popular and frame some of my foundational values or advice within them. It allows me to always be learning about current events and the things that capture the attention of the world.
Thinking about all this it made me think of a number of important challenges that I wish existed:
When is the "drink more water" challenge?
When is the "learn your native language" challenge?
When is the "volunteer to help your community" challenge?
When is the "check in on the elders" challenge?
When is the "be nice to others" challenge?
When is the "put your phone down" challenge?
When is the "get the plastic out of the ocean" challenge?
When is the "end poverty" challenge?
Anyway, you get the point!
Wouldn't it be awesome if all these challenges became real and we all used our social and social media influence to encourage others to take positive action too?
What kind of challenges that improve our in lives would you like to see people do?
