When people flirt with despair about the future, they are less likely to take the actions necessary to safeguard it, focusing instead on the short-term.
Interpretation
Despair about the future can inhibit proactive behavior and promote short-sightedness.
In this quote, Al Gore highlights the detrimental effect of despair on our ability to take meaningful actions for the future. When individuals dwell on hopelessness, they become preoccupied with immediate concerns rather than engaging in efforts that will ensure a better long-term outcome, thus failing to make the necessary changes to improve their situation.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.
Global warming is real and human activity is the main cause. The consequences are mainly negative and headed toward catastrophic, unless we act. However, the good news is that we can meet this challenge. It is not too late, and we have everything we need to get started.
The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.
I think it's harder for people than it should be. But as more and more of us become carbon neutral and change the patterns in our lives to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, we are now beginning to see the changes in policy that are needed.
We have a planetary emergency. We have to find a way to create, in the generation of those alive today, a sense of generational mission.
CO2 is the exhaling breath of our civilization, literally... Changing that pattern requires a scope, a scale, a speed of change that is beyond what we have done in the past.
Well-established theories collapse under the weight of new facts and observations which cannot be explained, and then accumulate to the point where the once useful theory is clearly obsolete.
When I rest I feel utterly lifeless except that my throat burns when I draw breath... I can scarcely go on. No despair, no happiness, no anxiety. I have not lost the mastery of my feelings, there are actually no more feelings. I consist only of will. After each few metres this too fizzles out in unending tiredness. Then I think nothing. I let myself fall, just lie there. For an indefinite time I remain completely irresolute. Then I make a few steps again.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world - No, you move.
Isil poses a threat to the people of Iraq and Syria, and the broader Middle East - including American citizens, personnel and facilities. If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States.
I repeat the declaration made a year ago, that 'while I remain in my present position I shall not attempt to retract or modify the emancipation proclamation, nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the Acts of Congress.' If the people should, by whatever mode or means, make it an Executive duty to re-enslave such persons, another, and not I, must be their instrument to perform it.
I took a chance, I took a shot And you may think Iβm bullet-proof, but Iβm not. You took a swing, I took it hard. And down here from the ground I see who you are
I jumped on the grenade that was thrown at myself and my friend. I don't recommend it.
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