Work towards your vision

What a stormy summer it was. Just a few weeks before the French burnt down the Kremlin: the British set the White House ablaze. Both America and Russia had been asked the question: Are you for us or against us? In each case they gave the wrong answer and consequently found themselves looking down the barrel of a gun.

So helpless were America and Russia when they were faced with the naked aggression of the world’s most belligerent nations that the British and French forces faced no opposition – the Americans and Russians left their capital cities to the mercy of the conquerors.

No this is not the future but the past: the summer of 1812. If, in 1812, you had said that some time in the future America and Russia would split Europe down the middle and share it between them you would have been considered mad. Yet had you, in 1965, said that within thirty years the Iron Curtain between American and Russian forces in Europe would be no more – you would have been considered naïve.

As we look at the world today we have very little idea what it will look like in 2050. We are in 2010 and 2050 is forty year on. Who’d have thought back in 1970 that today more women would be working in America than men. Even today it is hard to appreciate that there are more mobile phones in Africa than there were people twenty years ago. More people bank by mobile phone in Africa than do so in Europe and America combined.

There are economic and social dynamics going on right now – for good or ill – that are beyond our current comprehension. It would be interesting to find out what those dynamics are – but they are not that important.

The important thing is to shape the future, all of our futures, with our vision. With solid work, a kind heart and a clear spirit our journey will take us to places we have never even hoped to imagine.

Happy New Year.