The future of work is uncertain.

We can hope we are headed toward a world that welcomes, deploys, and compensates the whole spectrum of human abilities and aspirations. We can hope that the power of technology to free us from mundane tasks will enable a renaissance of the innovative spirit that gave us so many of the inventions and solutions we now enjoy.

But we might have to create that renaissance ourselves.

We might have to get off the path laid out for us by others and chase our own dreams for the future. We might have to embed learning into our everyday lives so that we can be better prepared for the opportunities that did not exist when we were in college. We might have to craft our own creative solutions to fit into market niches no one else sees–or to overcome what keeps us from reaching our goals. We might have to foster a homegrown brand of innovation. We might have to launch our own ventures—multiple times.

All this will take a new paradigm for looking at our work in the world and our relationships with people and organizations. It will mean learning to create our own opportunities and develop our own unique enterprises. It will require us to find ways to sharpen our skills continually and learn from one another. Most of all, we will need to keep our imaginations alive and dare to be original.

It’s time to start building the future we want from the bottom up.

It starts with Think Ponds.