The truth is that, I think for our generation, ‘now’ is a very difficult concept to grasp, and is almost always skipped over in favour of the future. What do they always say about us; the ‘instant gratification generation’, always thirsting for more, more, more? We crave the next experience as though we are adrenaline junkies looking for the next hit of adventure.

We also cram in as much as possible. We are a multi-tasking generation. For example, throughout last year I was juggling full-time work in a management role with the role of Managing Director of Brightest Young Minds (BYM) ruling my after-hours, as well as completing an intensive graduate certificate as an external student. All of this while purchasing an apartment and undergoing a two-month kitchen reno, which only took so long because we were trying to do ourselves! I am consequently very handy with an allen key. And I fit an international holiday in there somewhere as well. It’s not all stress and hard yakka, but it’s constant.

It’s not to say that I’m not in favour of the slow movement – but I know that everyone in this room wants to ‘get somewhere’ and sometimes getting there slowly is not an option when the goalposts of our ambitions shift so often. So we are forced to live a life that balances countless, and most often contradictory tasks. How many young people have a ‘secret life’ – the person they are and the projects they are involved in AFTER they leave work?

The danger with this, as I found out, is that it can become a relentless pursuit to ‘have things on your plate’. As an example, the day after I resigned from my exhausting role of MD of BYM, I volunteered my support to another similar organisation. And once I received my Graduate Certificate I was suddenly enrolling in a Masters programme – at the University of Adelaide no less!

But all this meeting people, learning things and getting home from work to start ‘working’ has finally caused the shift I was hoping would be just around the corner.

I came to Vibewire’s March FastBREAK to hear from some amazing young people on the topic, ‘Are You Ready?’ It was a truly inspiring event, and so I walked away thinking about the topic I was being asked to present on, ‘What now?’ I thought to myself, ‘Yes, I identify with this topic, but I want to give myself a challenge. I want to walk into the Powerhouse Museum at the end of June with an envelope in my hand containing my letter of resignation from work – that’s a real what now!’

As it turns out, I needed to whip out that letter a bit prematurely – about two weeks after the March FastBREAK event I got an email presenting an opportunity I just couldn’t refuse – in short, a dream opportunity that I feel like has been almost 2 years in the making as I built my skills and experiences in every spare minute I had. So I gave my notice two weeks later, finishing at the place I had worked for the last two and a half years, the day before we jumped on a plane to New York City. I literally stepped off the plane a couple of days ago, and yesterday I officially started as Projects Director of Collaborative Consumption.

But is that to say that the last two and a half years have been a waste, working somewhere that didn’t completely fulfil me? This is where the ‘now’ is so important. If I had always been looking forward to the day I could move on to a new experience, I may have missed the rich and challenging things I was exposed to in my job. Every step along the way has so much to teach you. But if you focus on the end goal you might get there and find you have missed a lot of valuable lessons along the way out of impatience and frustration because those emotions are so much easier than accepting each experience for what they are.

And surely we need to look at ourselves if the moment we book tickets for one holiday we are already thinking about the next one? Like the satisfaction of buying the tickets was as fulfilling as the holiday itself but for a much briefer moment. You might laugh at that, but I’m pretty sure I have been guilty of doing that on more than one occasion.

So maybe Eckhart is right and there is a lot of power in ‘now’ – but I also know that for our generation, we can’t afford to sit still because we have the weight of all the previous generations’ expectations and ambitions to carry.

I know we all spend so much of our day consumed with what’s around the corner for our careers, our travel, our relationships and lives in general.  I am fully in support of forward planning and knowing what your goals are no matter how amorphous they are or how often they change completely. But I guess my message is that these plans are at the mercy of so much more than we can have control over. The most opportunity we have to be in control of our destiny is in the decisions we make every second, every minute of the day. And these moments are the ones that can send us off on different and even more exciting paths.

So officially, for me I don’t really know what ‘now’ holds

All I know is that now is what we’ve got and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.

Matthew Peacock is the CEO of Streetwise Opera, a UK arts organisation that supports and empowers people who have experienced homelessness. The common conception of homelessness is that it relates simply to loosing your home, but as Matt explained at Vibewire’s second Enterprise Hub Seminar for 2010, many homeless people have in fact gone through extreme trauma or suffer mental illnesses. So the solutions are almost never as practical as those on offer.

The concept for Streetwise Opera was born when Matt was working as an opera critic, and moonlighting as a volunteer homeless support worker in his spare time. Matt had the idea of organising an opera to run as a fundraising event for the night shelter he was volunteering at. But it would not be a run of the mill charity opera experience; this opera would be staged and performed entirely by the homeless community.

Matt noticed that when occupied with the responsibility of building sets or rehearsing, those who participated in the event were able to momentarily park their problems and engage creatively instead. For the participants, many of whom were over 50 years of age, it was the first time in their lives they had been given an opportunity to show people what they could do, and it was the first time in their lives they had been congratulated for something they had done.

From this Matt saw an opportunity to turn the tables, to challenge the perception that homeless people were the people you stepped over coming out of the opera house (as he once heard a politician say). What began as a fundraising event had worked to build up the self confidence of people within the homeless community. All that was missing was continuity.

Streetwise Opera was founded in 1990 and has since staged eight music productions. Matt ensures that the productions are artistically credible and give the participants a professional experience by involving renowned producers and composers. But the organisation is and will always be primarily focussed on the progression and development of the participants both during and after their performances, not on the performances themselves.

According to Matt, the arts are still considered to be peripheral and sometimes inconsequential to the care of a homeless person. Matt’s argument is that arts programs work in conjunction with practical services on offer, giving the participants confidence and a belief in themselves that will allow them to successfully utilise those services.

As a public speaker, Matt encourages businesses to get involved with community services by lobbying the government or establishing projects that will simultaneously better the social enterprise and the people suffering inequity. But he also warns of the tensions involved when a community venture has the dual objectives of changing perceptions (primarily achieved through media exposure) and protecting vulnerable participants.

As Streetwise Opera continues to change the lives of people experiencing homelessness, Matt is presented with a growing number of media opportunities. He has been approached by people wanting to create documentaries, and many who encourage him to stage performances for reality talent shows – both of which would surely have an immeasurable impact on the public’s perception of homelessness, and the profile of the Streetwise Opera. He is also faced with the heightened and at times unrealistic expectations of participants, who receive a good review and suddenly believe that they will go on to become successful professional performers.

To balance these tensions Matt employed social researchers to design and implement a system to closely monitor and carefully evaluate the soft impacts and tangible outcomes of the program. Admittedly, it took a few mistakes and missteps before Matt learned that a bad decision is a sign of compromised values. So he is now adamant that every decision be made with the program’s mission statement in mind, and that the welfare of both participants and staff is the first and only real priority.

Matt’s visit to the Vibewire Enterprise Hub was practical and informative, but it was also inspirational, as he implored us all to remember: “If you believe things are impossible and you are working with vulnerable people, you will inevitably pass on that belief to them . . . You may be told it’s too risky, or too ambitious, but nothing is impossible.”

Everybody has an idea of where they want to be weeks, months or years into the future. Our hard work in the present will hopefully, eventually capture our dreams. People know what they want for themselves – a career, family, travel etc – but what do they want for the world?

A social media meeting held at the Vibewire Enterprise Hub on Tuesday, 29 June didn’t hope to answer this question but help others do. FutureStory, as part of Live Futures 2020 and Sydney Design 2010, will allow people to share their hopes for the future via video stations set up around Sydney. The project is intended to get people to start thinking about the issues affecting the global community and how to address them. Crowded around the conference table at the Vibewire Hub, Janine Cahill, the FutureStory innovator, and a dozen other media makers feasted on chips and wine as they discussed the importance of community participation in world development.

Some part of contemporary society thinks ‘The future gets done to me’. FutureStory will allow anyone to tell their story and get involved in building the future. The digital works will be a representation of personal opinions and ideas to be shared online with interested peers. Together they will reflect the contemporary vision for the future. Janine Cahill said, “The future has to be imagined before it can be created.” On Tuesday night, Janine opened up the floor so that media professionals could have their piece at imagining the future.

It’s interesting to watch a group of media enthusiasts argue. Twitter was mentioned merely as a footnote to another point and all of a sudden it is debated for an hour. Social media has hidden advantages that can spiral into a whole new interactive world as soon as someone applies a creative use for it. The social media meeting poked and prodded the concept of Facebook and Twitter to see how they could help FutureStory expand in Sydney. So yes, talking about Twitter for an hour was constructive.

What Twitter is recognised for, “a self-indulgence of opinion” says Letia Ayres, FutureStory could help reinvent. Twitter is gradually becoming business tool, of which FutureStory wants their part. The entire aim of the project is to encourage conversation about the future, especially on social networking sites. Real events could have parallel virtual discussions, inviting industry professionals and big thinkers to talk online about their story. The limitless potential of the media is a major emphasis of FutureStory and Live Futures 2020 in shaping the future.

After the cheese and crackers were polished off and the slight uselessness of Facebook was successfully vented, the overload of information and ideas was sifted through to find the best for FutureStory. This project will enable both online and offline communities to engage with the issue and hopefully act beyond their words. “The aim is to start a conversation but ultimately create something out of it” concluded Wendy Buswell, director of Babuska Productions. Dialogue has already begun (follow @j9j on Twitter) but it will be interesting to see what comes out of it after the event has ended.

FutureStory, as part of Sydney Design 2010, will take place from 3 - 14 August at locations around Sydney.

Stay tuned for information on Vibewire’s upcoming seminars and workshops, or click here for information about becoming a resident.