As we emerge from lockdown it would be easy to meander our way back to where we were. It’s important that we don’t waste this opportunity to make meaningful change.

Wouldn’t you love to live a full life? Wouldn’t you love for your children to live a full life? A life where all their dreams were real, present, and achievable?

Set sail for Utopia, or more specifically, for UtopiaX, because Utopia is different for everyone. By an X factor.

We are each the sum of our own experiences and perceptions. No two of us have had the same experiences, in the same geographical location. How do we want to set up experiences for OUR children, so THEIR perceptions allow them to live THEIR own Utopia?

Australia is a cultural melting pot. She is home to multiple races and to religious and political ideologies. She is home to the world’s oldest continuous culture. And Australians identify with more than 270 ancestries.

So how will we together, illuminate the future for OUR children?

Anthropologists describe how tribes, towns, territories and countries were formed for protection and resource sharing. It’s time we viewed planet earth as the precious resource she is. And that egalitarian, economic, religious, climate and health issues, demand ideologic unification. For the sake of OUR children.

Racism, climate changes, unethical behaviours, equality, health and the economy have demanded much of our attention recently.

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals provide a blueprint for peace and prosperity, for our people and for our planet. Recently People Power has shown its force and we have seen people come together to demand justice and change. All with conviction to make the world a better place. We just need to decide what ‘better’ looks like. And how we best get there.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #13 is Climate Action. Climate Change has been raising its tidal voice, the planet asking us to pay attention, for quite some time.

Across religious ideologies, paedophilia and extreme fanatical practices have been exposed. The deep chasm between religious theory and the reality of some religious practices can be ironic and tragic.

The SDGs #5 Gender Equality, #10 Reduced Inequalities, and #16 Peace Justice and Strong Institutions, highlight our lack of egalitarianism. The #metoo movement exposed the sexual harassment and abuse of women, the #blacklivesmatter protests surfacing the fear of what it is to be black. In 2020.

SDG #3 Health and Well-being, has seen the global activation of collaboration, as COVID-19 threw us into a health crisis. It’s the pandemic we apparently knew was coming but didn’t do enough to prevent. This virus has closed down economies and placed on warp speed changes to how and from where we work, online learning, cashless transactions and digital connectivity.

SDG #17 is Partnerships. COVID-19 has made us realise how interdependent and interconnected we are. Globally, scientists are working together, economists are exchanging business models and world leaders are negotiating trade and tourism bubbles.

We are so connected and interdependent and yet never more at risk of risking it all.

Pause and take a moment to imagine a system of governance that focuses on global issues at a global level rather than on national agendas. Imagine policies debated by global experts and voted for by 7.7 billion global citizens, a system that references the 17 United Nations Development Goals rather than the isolating aspirations of the 197 ego-centric nations of our planet.

How many conversations will it take to eliminate geographical, political, religious and gender barriers? How many COVID-19s and George Floyd’s and climate catastrophes?

Our political, our governance systems are archaic and destructive. It’s time to put differences aside and create that Utopic future we want to see. For OUR children.

We are at the precipice of change. The sea-saw is teetering. Are our conversations weighing on the side of love and compassion? Or are fear, hate and destruction consuming us? The future is being created in the sea-saw of our words and actions. We must choose wisely.

For OUR children.