I just returned from 12 days on the road with my Mother, yes, my Mother. I love my Mother, she’s 71 and is the most fun to be with on a road trip, we travelled from British Columbia to Manitoba. The drive was a marathon, 26 hours, which we did in two days coming back to my home in British Columbia. I learned things about my Mother no child should ever want to know, but I won’t share that with you here. I’ll be sharing about this trip in a series of blog posts, I hope they make you think.

On my journey, I learned a great deal about people and what I do, I was shocked to find out how we as a people in a country of this size don’t really care or want to participate in building a future. We want the future, we know there is a future, and we hope it makes our lives easier, but will we be able to do less and get more.

The hotel (Canad Inn) I was living in for the past week in Winnipeg was a nice location and a big facility, nice big rooms (FREE WI-FI), huge Flat Screen HDTVs, Restaurant, Room Service, a Hot Tub & Swimming, Meeting Rooms, Banquet Facilities, it had it all, even a Mini – Casino that was open from 9AM – 2AM! You didn’t have to leave the place, even grocery shopping was next door. In the restaurant, you only had to sit a short while and you could tell who the regulars were, everyone knew them by name it seemed. A small network of people in this hotel world we were all living in, no one, and I mean no one talked about the future or technology or anything of real interest to me. They were all talking about they’re lives, what they were going through, who they were working for and who they were hanging out with these days. I suddenly felt all alone, what I was there for was not needed, nor did anyone care what I was doing in Winnipeg. Even my waitress wasn’t excited to see me, she was going to give birth soon so you can tell what she was talking about with me. But for the most part, they just wanted to get to the Casino….why? Money of course, so they could escape the world they are in.

My epiphany, there are so many who are merely doing or living a work-style instead of a life-style, they talked about they’re life, but felt like they couldn’t participate in it, it was something happening to them, they were all working so hard, working for weekends & holidays. The future was something that was going to happen to them, and they hope things get easier, easier to slow the world down and easier to control the life they have. That’s a broken way of living to me, if you are working for weekends & holidays, your shit is broken….so why don’t we stop and do something about it?

I would be having coffee or breakfast and someone would always, as if on Que, where are you from and what brings you to Winnipeg? I would share two things, I’m from British Columbia and I drove my Mother here. Then…the big question, what do you do for a living….I always respond sarcastically with, ” as little as possible “. They keep pressing and I try to explain how I try to help businesses and individuals adopt the future of technology and build business models to increase revenues. A blank stare and a, ” oh that sounds like fun “.  No, it’s hard work, but it’s work I fit into my life, it does not define or consume my life.

Working to live is a hopeless way to carry on, but that’s changing, I see future generations wanting the lifestyle without the work, that sounds wrong too! Rewards and work go hand in hand don’t they? Can you have the rewards and not have to work for them? Maybe that’s why we buy lottery tickets, go to Casino’s and Bingo Halls, we want to get that big pile of cash so we can life a different life than we are living now. In fact, we bank our future’s on winning that money rather than participating in building the future each one of us wants.

I beg of you Winnipeg, and all of Canada, lift your head up, look forward, look to the future, observe what is happening around you, and start building the future you want to live in. Let’s help one another find a better way to go from a Work-style to a Life-style.

Is it me or am I all alone here?