August 2002 | Editor’s Note
Revisit the Past, Envision the Future
One hundred issues and fourteen years ago, Jim Slama and I began a modest publishing endeavor when we launched Conscious Choice in the summer of 1988. Ronald Reagan was winding down his second term as president and the rise of George Bush the elder was imminent.
One hundred issues happen in as many days for a daily newspaper — the first hundred days of a new president, for example. Even weeklies can hit that mark in less than two years. Monthly magazines must survive eight years and four months to publish a hundred issues — more than two presidential terms. It took us longer than that because we began as a quarterly publication.
Four times a year we gathered the news and wrote stories about holistic health, natural foods, environmental challenges, spiritual paths, and social change, until we had fifteen issues under our belt. In March 1992, four years into our project, we increased our publishing frequency by 50 percent as we switched to a bimonthly schedule. Arkansas Governor William Jefferson Clinton was sweeping the Democratic presidential primaries.
In January 1999, Seven years and forty-one issues later, we doubled our workload and went monthly as President Clinton faced impeachment. We were slightly more than halfway to the issue you hold today.
The issues seem to speed by at twelve per year. In fewer than four years of monthly publishing we’ve arrived at our one-hundredth issue.
We took some time in preparing this issue to pause (catch our breath) and reflect on some of the stories we’ve covered. We asked our writers to pick one of their past articles and revisit it. We wanted to know what they were thinking and feeling at the time and how they feel about the subject now. What has changed, in their thoughts and outlook as well as the world in general? What has not? Their brief reflections range from as far back as our third issue to one as recent as nine months ago.
Jim Slama looks at the bigger picture and sees a world that has made some positive progress since our first issue, yet much remains to be done. He describes some hopeful steps toward a more sustainable world.
As we look to the future, and our next one hundred issues, we wonder what kind of work will be meaningful and sustainable. Several experts in their respective fields provide predictions. It’s something to think about if you’ve been considering a change of careers. — Ross Thompson
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