First Thing To Say about P:5Y

People often ask me and Amber about how to talk about Peace in Five Years with their friends. We have whole sections of our book devoted to this question--because when you speak about the future, and about what is important to you, you are ten times more powerful. Speaking about YOUR vision of a world where everyone is safe from war, and what you are doing to pull that future into the present, makes you interesting, provovative and is a gift to everyone around you.

You are also helping to protect us all from the almost certain future if we do nothing. You can ask people what they see as the future of humanity with war--people are smart, they know! Generally their vision is pretty bleak. Then ask them if they want to live in that future, and their children to live in that future. Most people answer "no, I don't want that future, but I feel helpless. What can I do about it? War is human nature, bad people, religion, corporations, governments, hatred, long histories of conflict, profiteers, inner turmoil, propaganda, and all of that make ending war impossible."Peolpe who say this aren't trying to be difficult--they want peace as badly as anyone--they want hope and the power to act. Give it to them, and you are doing them a favor.

Here is the super-short sound bite:

Peace is possible. It has a deadline. You can help.

Going on from there in your own natural words is best, but sometimes we want help.

Here are some other things you can say, post, email, Tweet:

I just found out about a pair of social entrepreneurs, Nathan Otto and Amber Lupton, who have launched a movement to co-create the future of conflict. They see future in which violent war is off the political menu, in which new rules of constructive political conflict are enforced by ordinary citizens and by their governments, and in which everyone is safe from the danger of war.

Here's the amazing thing: they have a plan that creates world peace by February 14, 2014. Their movement is called Peace in Five Years, and the website is p5y.org. They wrote a book, Give Peace A Deadline. It's available in a free download.