We are inundated with news stories that sometimes shock us, amuse us, anger us or make us scratch our heads in disbelief. At other times, we just accept what we read or hear because our beliefs and cultural conditioning have anesthetized us – made us incapable of questioning an issue’s value or propriety. Wide Angle Thinking will look at life’s parade of events and conditions with a broad yet penetrating vision. We hope we will be able to offer a more coherent, insightful perspective than what usually shows up in the media. A wide angle view does not guarantee that we can see the full picture, much though we try. Our ability to see through, around and beneath things is as limited as our capacity to know the whole story or the circumstances behind it. Humility and forgiveness are, therefore, indispensable virtues for which we will strive, however imperfectly.
We will start each post with a provocative story in the news and then examine the underlying beliefs (conscious or unconscious) and extrapolate the likely consequences (intended and unintended). We will attempt to do this as a dispassionate rather than judgmental observer. I certainly agree with the ever astute Yogi Berra: “You can observe a lot by just watching.” We will also try to understand people’s motives and forgive their shortcomings; after all, none of us is perfect. As Thoreau wrote, “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes, for an instant?” 
The intent of Wide Angle Thinking, therefore, is to raise awareness of our idiosyncrasies and irrationalities and to understand – with compassion – seemingly inexplicable actions. We hope, then, this greater clarity will position us to minimize our unproductive and harmful actions as well as those of our institutions and communities. No individual or field of inquiry will be immune from our scrutiny – business, politics, sports, medicine – everything will be considered fair game.
Achieving our goals with objectivity, balance and clarity will be challenging indeed; we will give it our best shot and look forward to your comments and feedback. Clearly, our current ways of thinking and behaving are not solving our problems; a more responsible – and cooperative – approach is needed. As I wrote in the widely read article, Enlightened Business Leadership: What the World Needs Now, “We can solve our problems but we can’t do it without farsighted leadership and we cannot afford to wait.” It is time for all of us to heed the perceptive warning of Marilyn Ferguson, author of the best-selling The Aquarian Conspiracy, “If we continue to believe as we have always believed, we will continue to act as we have always acted. If we continue to act as we have always acted, we will continue to get what we have always gotten.”
Forward
