Build a better you chapter 2

                                                 CHAPTER TWO
                       UNDERSTANDING CURRENT EVENT AND TRENDS

         In chapter one our goal was to understand yourself, your characteristics your motivations

hopeful you very “mind” and maybe some insight as to how it worked , now the goal is to understand

the nature of things like society and movements in groups and what cause's people to react in certain

situations  or react to external forces and where you may fit in or find yourself in the tide of human

actions. In doing this the goal is  to come up with a personal plan that will allow you to excel when

time's are good and to survive when the tide is against you and not be pulled under by negative

influences that we all must face daily.

                                                     TIME LINE

         Modern civilization has developed through many “trends” and “fad” that have defined us  as a

whole society and as individuals. For example the 1940's and 1950's can be classified as the industrial

age when many of the factory’s started to become mechanized and law's began to be passed to

protect working conditions for the average worker. Procedures were developed to make working on

the assembly line more efficient and cost effective. The 1960's and 1970's  can be classified

as the beginning of the technical age as television was improved and “the media” began to grow,

science began to uncover mystery's and the line of communication began to shorten also America

began to feel the stress of growing pain as discrimination based on race and sex still existed even

after two world wars, a war that we didn't win and a war that we should not have been in the first

place. I think it would be far to say that this era can be called the “idealistic” time because of the

many factor that came into play to shape the focus of the populace and shift the conscious of the nation

by such men and women like, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr, John F. Kennedy Or Rosa Park to

name just a few who change the very mind of a nation at a precise moment in time but that another

story to be looked into at a later time. Right now our goal is to look in the rear view mirror of time to


to see where we have come fro as a collective because if you don't know where your have been you

don't know where your going which means you don't know where you are.

         That brings us to 1980's and 1990's . This era's can be defined as the “financial era ” because

of change in the  financial strategy  from the treasury leaving the gold standard ,(a way to base the

value of currency against the value of a mineral), to the birth of global marketing (buying positions and

property in other country's as well as selling  your own property to foreign interest). Knowledge

learned from the stock market crash of 1929 should have given awareness to those who make decision

of this nature but instead the human nature of greed prevailed which would lead to many other financial

problem for the economy in the years to come. Some of this can be credited to the Clinton

Administration and top Republican lawmakers who reached agreements to overhaul the financial

system, thus repealing Depression-era laws that have restricted the banking, securities and insurance

industries from expanding into one another business. It concluded decades of attempts to rewrite

banking laws to catch up with a marketplace that has already experienced broad consolidations and

the rise of financial conglomerates offering bank and brokerage accounts as well as insurance.
         
         With the increase in funding and the restrictions somewhat eased for research and development

caused technology to take major leaps in industry. With the development of the computer,

miniaturization of components and the birth of the internet the world became smaller, information

could be stored, organized and put into category’s in minuets instead of hours and transfer d and sold

in a moments notice thus the birth of a new industry, the information era . Information became a

centrally important component of society and formed the basis for the creation and manufacturing of

goods and services. The Information Era introduced new types of metal into material production.

Memory metals, which can assume different configures with applied thermal or electrical energy.

These new advances has caused advancement for mankind in many other fields such as medicine,

aerospace, the automobile industry, the communications industry, and the list continues to grow.


         With all these different periods in time being examined on our time line we must note that at the

end of each period there is a displacement of materials and personnel as one era moves out or changes

the previous era to be more uniform with the incoming industry  or service, causing it to change or

evolve or fall in obscurity .

         Let us take a look at a word that should sum up an idea that will place in your mind how many

of us think and make our choices. The word is “MODERNISM”, The deliberate departure from

tradition and the use of innovative forms of expression that distinguish many styles of the arts and

literature of the 20 century.

         The word modern, first recorded in 1585 in the sense “of present or recent times,” has traveled

through the centuries designating things that inevitably must become old-fashioned as the world

itself goes on to the next modern thing. We have now created the word “postmodern” as if we could

finally fix modern in time, but even postmodern will seem outdated in time. The English word modern

was not originally concerned with anything that could be later considered old-fashioned it simply

meant “being at this time, or now existing,” an obsolete sense today. Beginning in the late 16th

century we see the word contrasted with the word ancient and also used of technology in a way that

clearly relates to our own modern ways of living. (American heritage dictionary) .

         The next thing I want to elaborate on is that within each era there are cycles,these cycles

are characteristic and often regularly repeated event or sequences of event that occur. These repeating

cycles make patterns that we can you to track and predict events and occurrences.

Example: water cycles;
Droughts come in cycles, and the 1950s saw a series of dry years that caused farmers to dig thousands of new irrigation wells, hastened development of center pivot irrigation systems and caused a crisis as underground aquifers fell.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintains a database of rainfall amounts going back to 1895. From those statistics, they calculate how much rainfall is normal for each region of the USA. Then, they can map drought conditions year by year. Anything at an index of -4 or below is an extreme drought.

         
         
         More information can be accessed by reading “Family cycle:1980”, by author Author J. Norton,

Differences, Demography; Development stages; Divorces;Family and Marital status; Racial

Differences; social change Socioeconomic influences.

         All this being said is for the individual to asses their strengths and weakness's so they can

properly place themselves at the proper place and time as to where the are in their particular place

they chose to be, if one is not satisfied with their desired position the knowledge gained from these

exercises should help one chart a new course to ones own desired conclusion.

         I can not stress the point of being honest with yourself in doing these exercise because lying to

to yourself will not only give you false results but could also lead you down a path you don’t want to

take and could very hard to recover from, so like the old saying goes honesty is the best policy. Also it

I must stress the fact that in order for any growth to take place a person must forgive themselves for

past mistake, if don’t you will never learn from them. Each mistake,or failure carries with it the seed of

its invariable desired effect, so never be afraid to make mistake but always try to learn something

from them, I call it “the take away”, I try to always take some kind of knowledge away from my

foul ups something that I might be able to use at a later date.

         The one thing I am sure of from a natural point of view is you can be the most intelligent

individual in the the world, you may have a wealth of knowledge and a library to match it but if one

does not have the motivations, the willingness and self determination to see a idea or project thru to

Its completion either for failure or adulation the knowledge that is possessed is worthless. So now I

will be turning my attention toward putting the information that we have acquired to use to help move

oneself in the direction that one wishes to go. Some say that knowledge is power and that is very close,

what I believe that knowledge coupled with focus and action is results gained.