Make Your Own Future

Today’s little light of inspiration comes from a quote by Alan Key. For those of you who don’t know who he is, it’s enough to say that he’s a pioneer in the technology field. And although the quote does relate mainly to technology, it can, like a lot of good sound bites, relate to many other areas too. The quote is one you might have already heard. But if not, here goes:

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

Essentially, the whole concept of the quote is one concerning the nature of time. We look at the future as this hazy amorphous mass somewhere “out there”. It’s a foreign country, the future, like the past as mentioned in the opening lines to the novel by LP Hartley, The Go-Between. “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

But hazy though the future may be, it’s form, especially on a personal level, will be dictated largely by what we do today. When we think of the future as something outside our control, we fall into the trap of thinking that what we get out of life is largely due to chance, that we “get what’s coming to us”, when actually we get the results in the future of what we made today.

Thinking of the future as largely out of our control is to also fall into the trap of wasting time today. We think that a few minutes spent today will have little or no effect on what happens tomorrow, or next month, or next year. Actually, a few minutes spent today might make tomorrow better. And a few minutes spent tomorrow—which is now today :-) —might make the next day better too. And so it goes…

We sometimes think that by doing nothing, we are somehow cheating time, and that we can wait for a better time to do the things we want to do. But the time will pass no matter what you do, so you may as well do it to move towards that better future you’re dreaming about. This is the basis of good time management.

Think about it… What can you do today that will increase the chance of a better future for you and for others? Take just five minutes to think about it. Then do it. Go on, predict the future. The future is closer than you think.