If there's one message that Greece should take away from a continuous confrontation with the Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund it is that the chosen methodology is not working.
And if there's one question that we should all be asking ourselves then it should be: So what are we doing about it?
Judging from the statistics, the answer to that question is obvious -- not enough. To make things worse, the media has made misery its doctrine. Every day is a war zone. Greeks find themselves under a continuous fusillade of negative news, whether it is over the latest lender's dispute over austerity measures, the escalating refugee crisis which seems to be sprouting more heads than the Lernaean Hydra or the political squabbles and blunders of an inept, inexperienced and catastrophically ineffective government. From sunrise to sunset the day is filled with failure prompts and cues of total despair. It's something akin to being sucked into a downward spiral with a ball and chain of anxiety around your ankle.
All of these threats to prosperity are very real -- no one will argue that point -- and these threats continue to loom over our heads as our strength and options dwindle. The Greek economy has shrunk by a staggering 25 percent since 2006 and the unemployment rate closed at 24.4 percent in January 2016 and is predicted to rise after the new package of austerity measures goes into full effect.
Many would call this the Perfect Storm, and in many ways it is. But let's for one moment, as individuals of free will that live in a democratic society, entertain the notion that we still have a choice in terms of how we react. We can choose to accept our fate and concede defeat or accept our responsibility and refuse defeat. Refuse defeat with every breath we take and consciously opt to see this crisis as the greatest of opportunities.
Rahm Emanuel, the former Chief of Staff for the first term Obama administration and present day Mayor of Chicago said: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you never thought you could do before."
No one will contest the fact that the problems Greece faces today are colossal by any measure -- but opportunities and innovative ideas are also in abundance. .
Why could this be the greatest opportunity? Because the majority of us change only when we are forced to and this is usually a painful process in the beginning but one that can eventually lead to growth and re-birth. The greatest of opportunities would begin with introspection: what brought us here, what did we do wrong? Once we answer these questions we can then formulate a new strategy. By shedding light on weak or erroneous areas we make room for innovation and new ideas. We start anew and this can be a hopeful and exciting prospect.
Areas of change and innovation in Greece should be the creation of a dynamic, export-oriented productive base, a simplified process for starting and running a business, increasing investor protection, improving the efficiency of the legal system, linking research to innovation, promoting universities as investment in human capital but also as a potential industry, linking quality and productivity with higher wages and benefits.
But safe navigation out of the perfect storm requires accurate and dependable guiding instruments. For years scientists had been baffled by how a fragile insect such as the Monarch butterfly completed an annual 3000 mile journey as it migrated every fall from Canada to Mexico until a team of scientists and mathematicians from the University of Washington managed to solve the enigma. The butterflies complete their journey in such an optimal and predetermined way, arriving in central Mexico after two months of flight saving energy by using few input cues that depend entirely on the position of the sun and the time of day. In other words, the Monarch butterfly possess an internal compass for southerly travel in its tiny Monarch butterfly brain -- which is not really a brain but a set of neurons in its antennae and eyes.
So, wouldn't it be plausible to assume that if nature could provide an insect with such a highly advanced navigational instrument that something of a relative scale would have been allocated for humans as well? Just as the Monarch butterfly receives specific stimuli from the sun that is somehow encoded into a geographical positioning system so that it can leave a cold and hostile environment for a warmer, more viable one therefore securing its existence as a species -- so too -- the human brain must be "programmed" to respond to specific cues or survival prompts.
And what have our survival prompts always been as a species since the beginning of time? Myths.
Our stories. Man created myths to explain things he couldn't understand, to teach values and create unity and identity among a group. As man acquired more intelligence and experience -- these stories manifested themselves as culture and later as heritage or a nation's cultural identity.
As Greeks we have been abundantly endowed with a rich and diverse cultural heritage and our ancient forefathers have left us with a legacy that no other civilization has managed to parallel. Not only did they manage to change the world in only a thousand years but their influence continues to inspire and educate more than 6,000 years later.
The rise of ancient Greece as an economic force was extraordinary because of its extent, its vigor and its enduring influence on global culture and history. The driving force behind this continued economic success and growth was a credible and effective political institution, a de-centralized government, a concentrated focus on specialized local resources and a healthy middle class for consumption of goods; the answer to all our current woes in a nutshell.
According to George Prevelakis, Professor of Geopolitics at the Sorbonne University in Paris, Greece has huge potential and could be among the most developed and powerful countries of the European Union. With its highly educated human capital, its leading position in the global shipping industry, its significant and untapped resources among the Greek Diaspora, its billion dollar tourism industry, its world famous cultural heritage (Greece has one of the most "expensive" brand names in the world) and its incomparable natural beauty -- just to name a few -- Greece can be a formidable force in the global markets.
But our strongest negotiating advantage and asset is our Greek distinctiveness, and that is something that money can't buy. Just as the Monarch butterfly takes its cues from the sun every year to survive, thrive and procreate, perhaps we should now take our cue from our unique cultural identity to lead us out of the funnel we've fallen into.
After six years of a continuous political and economic downward spiral, Greece runs the risk of being reduced to a single narrative, the Greek Crisis, the Crisis Country; both terms are very demeaning, destructive and potentially irreversible.
No one will contest the fact that the problems Greece faces today are colossal by any measure -- but opportunities and innovative ideas are also in abundance. At a time when all many can see before them is a dead end we must accelerate our efforts and forge new paths of economic growth. We must cast a blind eye and a deaf ear to the prophets of defeatism, apathy and neglect and choose action, choose cooperation, choose innovation. Get out of the cave and see the bigger, brighter picture.
When asked in a recent BBC interview if we can have hope for Greece, the Finance Minister of Greece Euclides Tsakalotos replied: "There's always hope for ordinary people that take things into their hands, demand more democracy, demand that we take the agenda, and in the end it's people who change politics not politicians."
There is always some risk involved in choice. You might make the wrong one but taking the risk also opens doors of opportunity. In any case, regardless of whether or not you achieve the desired result, you still come out ahead in that you have discovered something you did not know before. Pretty elementary but entirely sensible. There are initiatives that simple every day heroes are working tirelessly at, day and night, to bring forth positive change. And they are growing by the second into a thriving community of proactive thinkers that are turning their thoughts into actions.
But perhaps the most important reason to act is because we are the last generation that will have the luxury of choice. It is not a given, it is a gift. The next generation will not have that option available to them. They will not be able to turn the tide because it will be too late. So we should ask ourselves how we would want the next generation to remember us. Will we be remembered as the generation that gave up or the generation that triumphed?
The choice is ours.
This blog post first appeared on HuffPost Greece.