Graduation Season for Generation E: Hope for a Sustainable Future

By Janet Levine

This is the season of graduation addresses and the one by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009 at the University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009 was singular. Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and author. Starting at age 20, he dedicated his life to sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. So he knows about generational change. Using no flim-flam introduction he plunged in, "But let's begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating...Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades." And he ended with an invitation, "This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. 8 0You are graduating to the most amazing, challenging, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it."

Yes, Generation E take it and run with it as if our lives depend on it. And they do; all our lives, and that is one reason why I am introducing you to the Enneagram (E-model). If you are "the programmers" as Hawken states, using our communications technology in this Information Age, I have high hopes for you to forge hitherto inconceivable inter-connections between people around our shrinking planet ... and within yourself. I am convinced that your generation, Generation E, has unparalleled ability, willingness and a crucial need to look deeply at itself and apply your hard-earned self-awareness to lives that can be productive and rich.

Generation E is for exploration and entrepreneurship. If you know yourself then your personal power and commitment is increased exponentially.

Generation E is for energy and enthusiasm. Follow any wild idea you have about changing the world; you never know where it will take you.

Generation E is for electric excitement when you entertain and enjoy new experiences that can benefit us all.

Generation E is for the E-model, a key to unlock the extraordinary within you.

Check out www.janetlevine.com/blog for ongoing information on the E-model.