This has been a pretty tough year for most people in every dimension. Notable tipping points are seeming to have been reached on just about every front. From the most personal of circumstances, as well as the professional, to the most global, with sweeping events overtaking international and economic affairs, including the very fate of continued life on this planet becoming a crisis issue no longer deniable or avoidable except by the most selfishly immature amongst us.

In the face of these tectonic shifts in our situations it can be easy to become overwhelmed, even distraught at the prospect of confronting these changes with the positive insight and energy necessary to overcome these challenges. In light of this, Rebecca Solnit offers this encouraging list of reading to help galvanize the spirit and renew one’s faith in our humanity with The Secret Library of Hope: 12 Books to Stiffen Your Resolve. It’s hard not to sense and have hope in our ability to overcome the challenges we all face, both personally and collectively, when one takes the time to learn and understand that though things are difficult and it seems like humanity hasn’t really gotten anywhere, we actually have and people have been challenging and overcoming entrenched power time and time again throughout human history.

It is time for us to shift away from operating out of defensive reaction, and instead act out of creative response to these sometimes seemingly insurmountable challenges. It is time to focus less on identifying what is wrong, since it has become abundantly clear to most that things are indeed not working the way they should for the benefit and best interests of all, and focus the majority of our energy and intention upon creating what is right for the world. This is a point reiterated by Solnit when she describes dissent in this country having “become largely a culture of diagnosis rather than prescription, of describing what is wrong with them, rather than what is possible for us.”

It will be encouraging to see if people in the world can make the effort in the coming new year similar to the kinds we have seen humanity exhibit in the past as described by Solnit’s review, which is a recommended read to all those questioning our ability to face what the future holds, and whether humanity has it in us to live with more honesty and compassion, helping to provide for our ability to live authentic, meaningful and fulfilling lives in it by making sure that we providing for others.

Happy No Fear to all for 2008.

- Andy Valeri, USTV Media