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Changes, Changes Everywhere!

We are witnessing massive changes in all aspects of our lives as we shift into the fourth turning. How can we make the shift most successfully?

by Oliver DeMille

The fourth turning is changing everything!

(If you haven’t read the excellent book The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe, it is a must. See my review here.)

The constant changes of our times are causing everyone to re-evaluate our focus in so many areas of our lives. Clearly government and businesses are re-evaluating, due to the natural economic shifts of an emerging fourth turning. Education, health care, entertainment and finance, industry and transportation, and just about everything else is going through a big re-evaluation and re-focusing period.

So are most TJEders, homeschoolers and parents in general. In fact, the growth of non-traditional private, charter and cooperative schools is natural to this Fourth Turning trend. Here are a few ideas on how to make this time of change really successful for you and your family—and not be left behind!

1. Stay Positive. Relax, enjoy and be grateful for the opportunity to re-evaluate, re-focus, and really emphasize the truly important things in your life, family and education.

During challenging times, there is great opportunity for innovation! As the status quo becomes ever shakier and the grand institutions begin to back-pedal on their promises of our deliverance, the mores and the constraints of popular opinion are relaxed as people turn to hope that something—anything—will help. That means your innovative idea is as worthy of consideration now as it ever will be. If people are too afraid or too entrenched in the past to look around and see the new opportunities for progress, they don’t learn or grow. But those who do see the great potential to improve during times of change can really make a difference. Take a pro-active leadership perspective and consider how you can improve your life, education, family and community right now.

Some people respond to changing times with fear, worry, blame and often even anger or stress. Be one of those with a calm demeanor and a reassuring smile who listens, lifts, and leads! Immerse yourself in the gratitude and optimism that make your attitude infectious. Positive opportunities are all around us.

Fourth turnings are great for family strength, improved marriages, and building strong relationships with friends and community. Now is the time! What is needed are people with the right attitude to look around, see the opportunities, and get to work on them.

2. Be Inclusive. The shift to a fourth turning highlights polarities—in politics, business, families and almost all relationships. Pressures tempt us to be more self-absorbed and negative in general. Don’t be one who defines this trend with divisiveness. Instead, reach out even more to any and all! Build friendships even more than usual with those who have different views, politics, religions, ethnicities, etc. Everyone is shoring up their Core. On a superficial level this is can be perceived as pulling away from one another. I prefer to think of it as a universal, renewed interest in getting back to basics. You and I may differ in application of the specifics; but the fact that we’re both moving beyond the mundane, the commercial, the cosmetic, in favor of our more basic motivations and values is essentially a thing we actually have in common. It’s all in how we look at it. As leaders, statesmen and stateswomen, we get to decide if this important and critical societal trend divides or unites us.

TJEders have hopefully read enough history and great ideas to not get caught up in the political divide that unnecessarily separates the nation—many nations. Our world needs great, classic-based leadership in and from all arenas, thought-families, creeds, tribes, cultures and nations. The classics and leadership education need to inform and improve all paradigms!

Sometimes religious or secular TJEders, or politically diverse TJEders, point accusing fingers at each other and even wonder why TJEd promotes the classics to “other sides.” Sometimes people with a certain viewpoint wonder if they can use the TJEd principles unless most or all TJEders share their predominant political, religious or world views. This is sad, and in fact points to one of the major conveyor-belt pitfalls of our century: people have become entrenched in fighting other views instead of learning from them, in vilifying proponents of competing ideas instead of celebrating the common values that allow for true communication and cooperation—which lead to meaningful conflict resolution.

It is wonderful that many views and perspectives are benefiting from the classics, mentors, inspiring-not-requiring, etc. If only more religious, secular, liberal, conservative, libertarian, blue, red, green, pink and others could benefit even more by learning the classics and applying the great principles of leadership education! I believe our world needs this.

The more TJEders from varying views and walks of life, the better. The principles of great leadership education are so needed. Whoever learns from them can benefit from them. The more diversity, the better!

If you want to develop, expand and strengthen your thought/values community, use the 7 Keys, the 4 Phases, etc., share the seminars, books and audios with more, get them more involved, invite them to events and Forums, etc. Classics are for everyone.

I know from my interactions with thousands of TJEders over the years that a major challenge to this ideal is that the “Get-off-the-conveyor-belt” transformation is so exhausting when we have one foot on and one foot off, that in some cases an internal renunciation has to take place in order to embrace the ideals that are more in keeping with our new goals. Sometimes this renunciation goes beyond personal change and includes some judgment and finger-pointing to others who are perhaps completely content with the things that the new TJEder has had to renounce in order to be true to him or herself. This temptation to generalize personal ideals to apply them to others is what we call the TJEd Conveyor Belt.

I have noted in my study of society many examples of communities where Core-level differences of application serve not to divide, but to add texture and flavor to the discussion of the commonalities.

First, I’ve noticed that ESPN and other sports media does a great job of including rather than excluding, and of celebrating differences rather than mistrusting or denegrating people who are different. In the third turning, sports were often used as an example of what is wrong with society, so it is especially appropriate to consider another side of this in the fourth turning. For example, when ESPN or Sports Illustrated cover Notre Dame or Texas Christian University or Southern Methodist University, they speak of religious differences with respect and support.

When they speak of BYU, they mention the unique dynamic that being a religious school brings to its sports teams. It is often noted that BYU’s teams frequently include athletes who are older than their peers from other universities due to a two-year break to serve a religious mission for the LDS church. Additionally, athletes are often not only husbands but fathers, and they bring a gravity and commitment to their play that some playboy partiers lack.

On the flip-side from conservative to liberal: when sports teams at Cal-Berkeley are highlighted, mention is often made of Tightwad Hill, where “treehuggers” and “liberals” (terms used casually, frequently, and with respect on one travelers’ review website with comments about of the complimentary skybox) can catch spectacular views of the bay, wander around and maybe view some NCAA football action—all free to whomever is willing to make the climb. Tightwad Hill is hippie democracy in action—and a time-honored sports tradition.

Sports anchors do exactly the same thing whether they feature private, religious BYU as they do when they profile the sports teams at Cal-Berkeley with its secular, liberal and counter-culture traditions. Interviews with Jewish, Muslim and New Age athletes likewise emphasize how the individuals’ beliefs animate their lives and their quest for excellence. Coaches using Buddhist meditation or inner-child counseling are reported with interest. Visits to the White House by athletes and comments about sports by politicians are treated equally and positively regardless of party or ideology.

The commentators at ESPN seem just as glad to report the human interest of the BYU story as the Berkeley one—as well as the stories of foreigners realizing their dreams at a U.S. university, kids from the ghetto getting a leg up, one more generation of a family sports dynasty, children of celebrities performing on the sports field, underdogs and undefeated champions, etc. Nobody seems particularly conflicted by the differences. They want to play it out on the field and see what commitment, sacrifice, teamwork, talent and character can get you. That’s their common paradigm.

In short, the top sports media outlets emphasize athletics, and celebrate and enjoy a wide diversity among those for whom sports is an important part of their life. Classics, even more than sports, are for everyone; perhaps we can apply some things from this example.

Other societal niches—from rock climbers to 4-H, sci-fi buffs, quilters, Harley Davidson caravaners, etc.—have unifying interests and activities that in many ways define their lives in similar terms; but these do not define them in every way. One is no less talented a quilter for being a ovo-lacto-vegetarian quilter, no more knowledgeable a 4-H’er for being a secular 4-H’er, and no more committed a climber for being a Korean climber. The differences only serve to illustrate the universality of the thing that unites them. TJEd can be a unifying element across a diversity of peoples, creeds and lifestyles. And in fourth turnings, more than any other time in history, we all need to be positive and more inclusive.

3. Be Understanding. Times of shifting like fourth turnings bring major changes. But most of us struggle with change, so we often try to resist it whenever it comes. During such times, people often struggle to figure out what is best for them and their families, and to adapt to the shifting realities; and once they do figure out what their ideal is, implementation of change brings on a host of other issues in terms of priorities and execution. Be understanding!

Some of our best friends, for example, long-time TJEd homeschoolers, are putting their kids in public school this year so dad can change careers (the economy left him no choice) and mom can go to work to help the family fund the changes. They are some of the best parents we know, and they will be great TJEd public schoolers now! This is the right change and time for them, and we’re so proud of them.

The bigger trend is more people moving, having to start over in building community, and even more people joining the ranks of home schooling. Many are facing naysayers on all sides. Be understanding. Listen. Care. Trust people to do their best and make the most of available choices; trust Providence to make up the differences when the ideal seems out of reach. Focus on getting your own choices right, and supporting others as they struggle to adapt to the new economic and world realities. Give a lot of support and less of opinion. That’s what the fourth turning needs right now.

The biggest trend of all in education during this shift is the explosion of new, small alternative schools and schooling options and co-ops! I expect we’ll see a lot more of this in the years ahead. Many parents, from both the public and home school ranks, are starting to choose alternative schools. TJEd is great for many of these parents and schools. If it is right for your family, be understanding of those who stick with other options.

If you are staying with home school or public school, be understanding of those who are choosing alternative models. Community, friendship and getting the principles of leadership education into all educational arenas are more important than picking sides and judging the choices of others.

In short, be understanding of those who do things differently than you. Right now, with our third-turning hangover view of what is “normal” (meaning what we lived during the 1980s and 1990s), it is easy to unfairly judge others. But many who are making changes are leading the new trends. In twenty years we’ll look back and see that these changes built foundations for a much better world ahead. Be understanding!

By the way, be understanding of yourself as well as you go through this time of shifting, re-evaluation and re-focusing!

4. Be excellent. Quality-not-Conformity is still a key principle. All 7, indeed 8, Keys are universal and vital in all four turnings. You will undoubtedly need to consider course adjustments to apply them a little differently, but all of us can benefit from applying all 8 keys more effectively and with more attention and focus. And let’s give a nod to some other virtues of worth in this time: the teachableness of humility and the courage of tenacity.

While there is a lot of change that is affecting us all, for the most part we are still in the calm before the storm (see A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion, pp. 161-163; or click here to read it online; see also this article by Stephen Palmer). With the growing awareness of the Unraveling, we are moved by an urgent sense to be doing something.

Step back; take a deep breath. Caring for your families is doing something. Building a business is doing something. Refining your character and habits, improving your people skills, financial independence, physical health, important relationships—each of these—is doing something. Getting a world-class leadership education—for you and your children—is doing something. Know what today is for; do it well. Then do the next right thing.

Now is a truly great time to re-read A Thomas Jefferson Education and seek new insights that apply to you now. Reading it again, now in the fourth turning, will be like reading an entirely new book! The basics take on a whole new ring and meaning when applied to a new fourth turning. The longer you’ve been using TJEd, the more you’ll benefit from this review.

The quality of your education during shifting times —and what you pass on to your children and grandchildren—is more vital now than at any other point on the cycles of history. The educational quality of those getting a leadership education in the next twenty years, between 2009 and 2029, will literally determine the future of freedom, prosperity, and morality—all through leadership.

Big changes occur most during FIRST turnings, and they are determined by the education of leaders during FOURTH turnings. This means that we have until somewhere between 2021 and 2035 to educate the leaders, entrepreneurs, statesmen and parents who will usher in the next big thing—whatever we decide to make it.

Note that today’s five year old will be 25-30 when the next first turning hits, while today’s fifteen-year-old will be 35-40. In other words, when the biggest changes in our modern history arrive, our kids will just be getting ready to be leaders. We have a limited window of time in which to help them get a great leadership education; and if we do, the future of freedom, prosperity and morality is bright.

In Conclusion: Shifting times are met by most people with fear and worry, but leaders see them as great times of opportunity! We can make the most of the current world, and show others how to do the same. The way to do this is simple: stay positive, be inclusive, be understanding, and, in the classic words of Bill and Ted: be excellent. These are some of the deepest, most profound, and most useful lessons of the classics and great mentors.

The 7 Keys are needed now more than ever, and leaders are needed to apply them in innovative and increasingly effective ways in our homes, communities, schools and society. Be one of those leaders. You were born for such a time as this. Let’s all make the most of it.