When you think of yourself in relation to the changes happening in our society, would you consider yourself Woke, Awake, Aware or Sleeping? As you might expect, there are benefits and dangers in each category.

Take Woke, for example. If you consider yourself Woke, you might strongly align with the current opinions of the Woke culture. If we are talking about climate change, you could be for moving to a fully green society on the quickest possible timetable. And you might want to get rid of those 70,000 cows producing methane. You might believe gender dysphoria is a huge issue and agree that everyone has a right to gender-altering surgery starting at a very young age. You might work for monetary reparations for those whose ancestors were slaves. These are only a few examples of the platform of the Woke culture. One of the biggest benefits of agreeing with them is that you will receive very little pushback in academia or in the corporate boardroom when expressing your opinion. The danger of aligning with these ideas is that the consequences of these policies will strain the financial stability of our society and cause irreparable damage to those affected by them. Where would you be if fossil fuels were outlawed in five years? Could you afford an electric vehicle? What if you had gender-altering surgery at 13 and, at 21, decided to change your mind? Does your city or state have the financial resources to pay reparations to those deserving them?

Do you consider yourself Awake? If so, have you done your homework and sought out varying opinions on the current topics of the day? Have you listened to more than one news outlet and studied the issues from different sides? The benefit of being Awake is that you will not get swept up in current popular opinion and will not fall for whatever is being hyped at the moment. The danger of being Awake is that it is easy to be overwhelmed with so much information. It takes real mental energy and time to have informed, objective opinions after sorting through the available facts.

How about being Aware? If you consider yourself Aware, you know what is going on around you, but you are too busy or distracted to educate yourself on what is happening. Life might be good, and you don’t want to rock the boat in your own little pool of water. Or perhaps, life is bad and you just can’t think outside of the circumstances enveloping you. One benefit of being Aware is that you don’t have to deal with the stress of the cacophony of the news. The danger of being Aware but not Awake is that changes will be coming down the pike, either legislatively or culturally, and when they do, you might wish you had been more engaged before policies are made that might negatively affect you.

And what about those who are Asleep? Do you go about your day so self-absorbed that you have no time or energy to engage in anything outside of your own egocentric circle? If so, you are the one who is in the most danger. Changes will happen in our society, and you will just have to deal with them with little or no forethought or preparation. That will be scary indeed. It may feel like a comfortable place to be if you are Asleep, but what would you do if your country went to a digital currency next year? Would you even know what is happening or why?

So many changes are on the verge of taking place in our society, socially, culturally and economically. We should take the time to be Awake as to what the changes will mean for each one of us. Yes, it takes a certain amount of mental energy to get informed but it will certainly be worth it in the long run.

Image by CPP20. Courtesy of Pixabay.