Lively Up Yourself

Bob Marley recorded a song with the name "Lively Up Yourself". Ever since I heard that song and came to understand the struggle and message behind his music I have thought this phrase was a good euphemism to describe the act of rising to a challenge or getting your head in the game.

Most recently I have been feeding my curiosity about the potential future impacts of climate change, environmental damage, population growth, energy scarcity and conspicuous/ignorant consumption with some healthy reading. I feel more informed for sure.

That said, I am much more unsure of the security of the American lifestyle when it is so obvious that business as usual is the mode for the 300+ million of us. We aren't well informed, we don't know what actions we can take to help and we believe somebody else is going to do it all for us. We are so wrong, but time has not run out.

Just this week a CNN article highlighted one of the key problems, the declining popularity of math and science education. Check out the article here

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/23/obama.science/index.html

Without math and science we can't understand our key challenges, how to solve them, where to apply our resources and measure our progress. And trust me our competition (China, India, etc) aren't going to do it for us for free.

"We are in an age when asking whether we should be doing the things we are, and taking responsible action is going to be the difference in our future." -- Jason Phelps, 2009

We should all take some time to lively up ourselves and figure out how we can be part of a future we all want but won't have if we don't act.

--Jason