I’ve been thinking a lot about why it feels so difficult—almost impossibly difficult—to embrace some of the most basic human forms of grounding and centeredness in our modern lives. Why it feels so hard to fully relax. To carve out time to move our bodies. To truly be present with people we love. And, probably most importantly, to be fully engaged and intentional about the lives we want to create.

And in this thinking—reading, listening to podcasts, conversations with other thinkers on this subject—something has become clear:

In this heated cultural and political moment where everything is moving so quickly, we don’t have consistent frameworks to fall back upon anymore.

With all of the progress we’ve made in our material lives—and so much of that progress has been genuinely incredible, we also have to acknowledge that there has also been a price paid.

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This in-between stage feels groundless, scary and very uncertain.

But (isn’t there always a but) there’s this really interesting opportunity to create new frameworks or ecosystems—we could even say a spiritual ecosystem—that works for us. But wow, do we have to be intentional about this.

Because if we just allow ourselves to go with the flow of modern life, we are going to be completely overwhelmed by all of the noise, all of the information, and constantly pulled away from the very fundamental things we need to be grounded.

This has been a powerful inspiration for me to share the idea of the Groundwork Collective.

I’ve worked for many years in peacebuilding and international development—really looking at some of the stickiest, most acute, most complex problems humans face.

And here’s what I’ve realized: It doesn’t matter how much policy expertise you have. How much technical knowledge. How many resources.

Without that fundamental groundwork—without presence, without capacity to be with difficulty, without the ability to relate authentically to other human beings—nothing sustainable gets built.

I’ve seen this over and over: The people who sustained their work in impossible contexts had groundwork. The people who burned out didn’t.

It wasn’t about who was tougher. It was about who had built foundational capacity.

So I feel like I’m returning to these fundamental questions of relationship, place in the world, understanding of the world through the Groundwork Collective.

When I look at the future right now, I’ll be honest—it feels uncertain at best. Some might even say dystopian.

Climate crisis. Political polarization. Economic instability. Technological disruption. Social breakdown. The list goes on.

I think right now, as human beings, we’re having a really hard time imagining what a good future looks like. What a thriving future looks like. And that feels daunting. It feels scary.

But here’s what I do know:

The future is going to need critical thinkers.

The future is going to need people that know how to relate across difference.

The future is going to need people that are grounded, people that are wise, people that are calm, and people that can make decisions from a place of stability—not a place of fear and reactivity.

The future needs people with groundwork.

And that’s not some distant, abstract future. That’s next year. That’s next month. That’s tomorrow.

Your family needs you with groundwork. Your workplace needs you with groundwork. Your community needs you with groundwork.