By Sid E. Williams, B.S., D.C.

[Editor’s note: This column was excerpted from a speech delivered to Life University students, staff and faculty on Founder’s Day, 2001.]

Our main purpose today is to dedicate a time capsule that contains items that have some significance for us now and which would be of interest to the people who open it up 50 years from now.

The capsule contains many items that different people have chosen to represent one aspect or another of the activities at Life University. For example, one of Dr. Nell's teacups from her famous tea parties is in there.

We also have an assortment of lapel pins, the most important of which, in my opinion, is the Lasting Purpose pin. This is a symbol you would do well to wear everywhere you go. It tells people who you are and what you represent. It signifies that you practice the Lasting Purpose creed of loving, serving and giving out of your own abundance.

Your chiropractic degree and your license to practice will tell people that you have the technical skills to serve them, but your LP pin – and the mindset that goes with it – tells them you also have the love and compassion required to serve them well.

You can get all A’s in your academic studies and graduate with a 4.0 average, and that’s good, but technical knowledge alone will not guarantee you success. What people are looking for, and what they will respond to, is someone who genuinely cares about them and is able to express that love and compassion in their every word and action.

Chiropractic is a unique profession. With the skills you will have when you leave this university, you will be able to perform great services for humanity that can be achieved in no other way. With your skillful hands, you will be able to correct spinal malalignments, thereby restoring the integrity of the nervous system and enabling your patient’s body to rid itself of pain, dysfunction and disease. What a great power this is! What a great responsibility!

Some of you will accept this responsibility and go on to be great leaders in your profession and in your communities. Some of you, unfortunately, will be distracted by other interests, and you will waste the opportunity you have to stand above the crowd. A Lasting Purpose mindset can make the difference between mediocre success and outstanding success. When you love just for the sake of loving, and you build up an abundance of love, then you will love your profession, you will love your patients, and you will love serving at every opportunity. And you will be successful.

It is only natural in our youth to think that we will never grow old. Nevertheless, as we all eventually realize, time is the medium through which all matter flows. Struggle as we might, we cannot avoid traveling through this unforgiving medium that has neither friend nor foe.

This time capsule that we dedicate today will be opened 50 years from now. Looking back 50 years ago, to 1951, I was at the height of my athletic career, playing football at Georgia Tech. Just a year later, in 1952, I was playing in the Orange Bowl and helping my team win a great championship. At those times in my life, the year 2001, the beginning of a new millennium, was so far away that ever reaching it seemed like little more than a fantasy. And, yet, here we are. Now we look ahead to 2051, and that also seems like something out of a science fiction novel.

What the world will be like when bright-eyed young people – yet unborn – open this capsule in 2051 is really beyond the imagination of anyone living today. In considering this question, I think it is wise to remember that few prognostications for this year will turn out to be very accurate. To look ahead 50 years or more is ambitious, indeed. I’m sure future generations would be amused by our efforts, but let’s think about it anyhow.

First of all, our world is becoming ever smaller and more amalgamated. The thousands of different languages and dialects on earth developed because of geographical isolation. As communication technology that has developed in just the past 20 years continues to improve, no doubt we will be moving toward the adoption of a universal language. Now, in 2001, Europe already is taking steps in that direction.

I suspect that in the year 2051, people on every continent will be able to communicate, probably with wristwatch-size telephones, directly with all other nationalities through this common language.

Over the decades between now and 2051,

I suspect that many steps will be taken toward the formation of a world government that is without borders. A world currency, of course, will be early in coming. As a United Europe becomes more competitive, a United North America will become a necessity, followed, perhaps, by a United Asia and a United Africa. In time, then, even these divisions will be dissolved.

The Future For Chiropractic Is Unlimited

More relevant to my own area of expertise, I see chiropractic as always being a part of the overall health-care industry simply because it is both effective and economical.

Fifty years from now, people all over the world will be much more knowledgeable about how the body works and about how every cell is dependent upon the efficient functioning of the nervous system. We’ll be teaching spinal hygiene procedures to children from kindergarten through college. People will no longer be ignorant of the role that a subluxation can play in their overall health. It will be common knowledge that removal of nerve interference allows the body at the cellular level to again function normally so the body, which is controlled from within, can heal itself.

Life University now is the world leader in teaching spinal hygiene with the full cooperation and support of the World Health Organization. Even now, at the beginning of this new millennium, we at Life University are taking chiropractic care and chiropractic knowledge to the world. One day our influence will reach from Mexico to Panama and from Venezuela to Argentina. We will take the healing miracle of chiropractic to every city in Europe, every hamlet in Asia and every village in Africa.

We are opening many of the doors by ministering to their Olympic athletes, just as we did a few months ago at the 2000 Games in Australia, where we took care of competitors from Honduras, Costa Rica and Guatemala on the field. We expect to take care of athletes from 50 to 100 nations at the next Olympic Games in Greece, with Life University chiropractors leading the way.

By the time future generations read the messages in this capsule, we will have from 100,000 to 150,000 chiropractors serving the world, and we will be licensed in at least 50 countries. The future of chiropractic is unlimited! And you are a part of that future! Aren’t you pleased? Aren’t you proud? Aren’t you excited?

The days when people will blindly allow themselves to be burned, butchered and drugged just because their doctor prescribed it are coming to an end. As people become more educated and sophisticated, those aspects of traditional medicine that not only are not beneficial, but also actually do harm to the patients, eventually will be eliminated. Even now, those practitioners who are on the leading edge of medical technology are abandoning the traditional surgical and drug protocols for techniques that are more in harmony with natural law.

Genetic engineering will be commonplace in 2051, as will be the biological manufacturing of a variety of replacement parts for worn-out humans. Nevertheless, as long as human beings continue to run, walk and play, attendance to spinal hygiene will be of even greater importance than dental hygiene.

By 2051, I suspect that artificial means will be available to make teeth last for a lifetime with very little care. The complexity of the spine and its effect on the nervous system and all cell functioning, however, demands that it always be given special attention.

Hope For Humanity

Of course, as time goes by, the fate of the world will be determined largely by the goodwill of humankind, or the lack thereof. At the beginning of the 1900s, it required the efforts of thousands of individuals in concert to do much damage to the world and its inhabitants. Today, at the beginning of the 2000s, one individual in possession of the necessary technology and equipment literally can destroy the world as we know it, in one fell swoop.

For humanity to survive and prosper, we must do a better job of drawing upon the power of love. Although we inhabitants of today’s world are becoming increasingly more knowledgeable in the areas of science and technology, our spiritual wisdom is rapidly declining. Scientific breakthroughs are increasing at an exponential rate, and yet man’s inhumanity to man is not diminished. We have the knowledge and the resources to all but totally eliminate disease and suffering in the world, but the vast majority of human effort is devoted to increasing suffering through war, exploitation and unbridled greed.

We are very vulnerable, but we are not without hope. As long as there is one spark of love glowing in one heart on this earth, then there is hope that the light of love will be resurrected to its full potential and will guide us to become a more humane humanity.

At Life University, we are eternally optimistic that our institution and the chiropractic profession will continue to grow and flourish. Our operational creed requires us to love, serve and give out of our own abundance. We produce professionals who go out into the world and carry out that human obligation to minister to the needy through unselfish acts of love and compassion. So far, we have produced over 12,000 graduates who are now serving humankind with their many skills.

Life University is more than an institution of higher education that is home to the world’s largest school of chiropractic. We are a leader in research. The World Health Organization named Life University the only world wide coordinating center to study the use of chiropractic care for low back pain. Through Life Around the World, we are taking health-care services, as well as programs to provide clean water, food, housing and education, to needy millions throughout the world. Locally, we provide affordable chiropractic care to tens of thousands of patients through our clinics on campus, in Atlanta and in Cobb County, where we now have the world’s largest chiropractic teaching clinic.

It is my hope and prayer that future generations look back with loving kindness at those of us who have gone before them. I hope they will credit us with what good we have done and forgive us our sins of both commission and omission. I hope they will learn from our mistakes and realize that the future of this world depends on them and what they do in their own slice of ever-flowing time.

The Earth is a very forgiving mother, but her tolerance is not with limits. We and all future generations must do all things in love if our efforts are to be successful. With love as our companion, even if we do not reach the goal for which we are striving, the journey itself will be reward enough for our efforts.

May God bless all of us here, and may He bless all humanity for all time.

About the author: Sid E. Williams, B.S., D.C., is founder and president of Life University. Comments may be addressed to him at 1269 Barclay Circle, Marietta, GA 30060; or E-mail drsid@life.edu.

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