[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”5″ bottom_padding=”3″ overlay_alpha=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″ row_height_use_pixel=””][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” gutter_size=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ medium_width=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ column_width_pixel=”800″][vc_column_text]For whatever reason, “The Future” has always been a fixation at Eight Seven Central. Almost all of our interactions with clients revolve around their vision for the future. We get to sit and listen to clients as they plan out their brand or their large gathering of people or their cause that is fighting for something great and noble.

The one common thread that seems to carry through a majority of our clients is an extreme optimism about the future. Our clients are all extremely creative in their own field, and are working relentlessly to create a better future for themselves, the community, or humanity as a whole.

I’ve dealt with a lot of clients, employees, and people in general over the last 10 years at this business. I’ve found that there is some deep yearning inside all humans to arrive at a Beautiful Future.

However, the last few months has caught almost all of us off guard.

At a personal level, I am an extremely optimistic person. It’s probably a defense-mechanism-gone-wrong, but when my life gets overwhelming, I find myself floating away to think about my own Beautiful Future.  

I haven’t quite figured out what this COVID business means. I can’t really make sense of how this pushes us toward the Beautiful Future. I can’t understand the suffering, or why it necessary, or if it’s necessary. I don’t think it’s fair to say there is some greater reason that the Universe is making it happen. 

But I do know that humanity is a creative bunch that aspires to solve problems. 

And in the most optimistic way, this pandemic is a really great pause button where that creative bunch can take a breath and identify and solve problems that need to be solved. 

Over the last few months, when I start to get overwhelmed by terrible news, my self defense mechanism kicks in and I think about all of the great advancements that are probably going to come out of this pandemic. The phrase “The Future is Beautiful” has been my mantra over the last few months.

When this is all over, we will hopefully have a deeper understanding of the natural world at the microscopic level. We’ve have a deeper understanding of how humans interact when life makes it hard to interact.

I don’t know it for sure, but I think that we will also have a deeper understanding for what it means to live a fulfilling life. We will understand how to appreciate the beauty of nature just by sitting and observing. We will hopefully understand how much of our time we spend simply doing busy work. Hopefully we get those precious hours of our life back.

I also hope we can learn how to be more responsible as businesses to be better stewards of our communities and environments where we operate.

I’ve had the idea of a sustainable t-shirts tugging at my conscience for a while now, I’ve just been too busy to actually take the time to make it happen. COVID has given me the time to make it happen, so here it is.

I finally sat down and found a great shirt that is made from recycled water bottles. We’ve found some water based inks that make excellent prints. And MOST of the shipping material will be made from recycled materials.

It’s a small project where I dedicated some time to figure out a better way to conduct our business. But it’s a big step toward my own Beautiful Future.

And when I think all of the creative people are working toward getting this whole mess figured out, I get back to being optimistic about the future. It’s a big scary mess right now, but I know humanity, and I know that there is immense beauty that blossoms from the chaos.

We’ll get there together, and it’ll be beautiful when we arrive.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]