Ideas Change the World

Wherever you are right now, take a good look around, and just notice all of the incredible ideas that surround you.

I did this the other day, and found myself absolutely awestruck by the realization that everything in sight was once just a picture in somebody's imagination. The computer on my desk, the light beaming down on it, the ballpoint pen in front of me, the insulated coffee mug in my hand, they were all once just visions in their creators' heads. Visions that were probably laughed at or at the very least doubted before they came into being.

What inspired this reverie was a recent issue of Time magazine which featured articles on some of the greatest minds of the 20th century -- from universally recognized icons like Freud and Einstein, to people like Philo Farnsworth and Leo Baekland, whose monumental inventions (television and plastic, respectively) long outlived their names.

As I read through the articles that detailed the lives of these great inventors and thinkers, and looked around at the world they impacted, I was reminded once again of the inevitable rewards of doing what you love, drowning out the voices of the doubters, and following your dreams as far as they will take you. Imagine how different your life would be today if Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, or Jonas Salk had given in to the destructive power of doubt? By the same token, just think of all the fantastic things we would have, if everyone, and that includes you and me, stayed true to their own great idea, and saw it through to fruition.

In this same issue of "Time," Bill Gates, who will surely be hailed as one of the "greatest minds" of this century and the next, reflected on the phenomenal achievements of the Wright brothers, observing that the airplane was, in effect, "the World Wide Web of that era, bringing people, languages, ideas and values together."

He concludes his article by wondering where tomorrow's Wright brothers might be now, and asking his reader, "Who would have thought, as the 20th century opened, that one of its greatest contributions would come from two obscure, fresh faced young Americans?"

The answer is, of course, those two young men themselves. They knew that in spite of the challenges and all of the failed, misguided tries, that they were really onto something. So they tuned out the doubt, stuck to their guns, kept on trying against all odds, and created something that changed the world forever.

The moral of that story is, so can you. There's a world out there waiting to be changed and it needs your ideas, creativity, passion, and action!