Albert Einstein’s Solution for 2020 and the Most Important Resolution for 2021

The man who gave us the Theory of Relativity also told us how to solve the economic crisis, the pandemic, and the 2020 post-election fallout. So why aren’t we listening?

Einstein is often quoted as having said some version of the following: “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Whether or not he said those exact words, and there is no authority indicating that he did, he none-the less did say something as profound and applicable today as it was in 1946.

On May 24, 1946 Einstein, as Chairman of the Atomic Energy Federation, sent a telegram signed by several hundred prominent Americans seeking to raise $200,000 “for a campaign to let people know that a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” It is this verified quote that has spawned the many versions since attributed to Einstein.

Regardless of whether it is one of the derivative versions or the original one, there is no doubt that Einstein was sending out a clarion call, and tacit warning following the unleashing of atomic energy, that we humans needed to develop an alternative way of perceiving and utilizing power…its potential, its application, and its consequences. Particularly, the consequences of its misuse.

So now let us make believe Einstein sent out that clarion call today. On Twitter. What is this genius and futurist asking us to do and why?

As with the “good or evil” potential of atomic energy, so too the “good or evil” potential inherent in how we now deal with the challenges 2020 has rendered. The success or failure of our efforts critically turns on our perception and willingness to see thing from a higher vantage point. After all, politicians have not been able to solve the political crisis. Economists have not been able to solve the financial crisis. The medical community has not been able to solve the pandemic crisis. Why?

Precisely because they have failed to heed Einstein’s caution. They have tried what has been tried in the past and failed. It is, after all, the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The “same thing” all three of those communities are doing is what they have each done before with little to no avail.

Politicians trying to solve big government ineffectiveness and waste by enlarging government and throwing good money after bad.

Economists trying to prop up a bloated and valueless global financial system by infusing more bloat resulting in even less value.

The medical profession working in conjunction with the pharmaceutical companies to create more damage control for diseases and after-the-fact, vaccines that treat consequences rather than researching the conditions that lead to disease and being proactive and prophylactic about wellness.

Ever generation has its challenge. I have written before that this is ours. Our challenge is to literally rise to Einstein’s call that we demand of ourselves a new way of thinking about the world, its potential and our personal responsibility for demanding a more expansive, more enlightened, more comprehensive and above all else, a more ethical way of living in harmony with each other and all aspects of the natural world.

The Torah, the first Five Books of Moses, teaches that we humans are mere dust. It simultaneously teaches that everything in this world was created for us. Therein lies the paradox. We are as inconsequential, or as indispensable, as we believe. If we believe that we are inconsequential, its allows us to continue to live recklessly, without responsibility for our thoughts and actions. But if we believe the latter, that we are indispensable, then we rise each day with gratitude and an unshakeable sense that time is of the essence. That how we use all that we are given, quite literally, creates or destroys worlds.

If you’re inclined to make a New Year’s resolution, now is the time to resolve to develop a new way of thinking about the world. Its Einstein’s solution, not mine. It’s the one resolution we’d all be wise to make and keep.