Space for the Future

Have you ever noticed that there is always a tremendous amount of evidence for why things must stay the same and very little evidence for why they can change?  We throw phrases around like “In reality,” as if those words have somehow endowed us with the power to speak the ultimate truth.  What often goes unnoticed is that the only reason we can cast dispersions on the current reality is because we also have a concept about how life should look.  Without the picture of what you want, there would be nothing to compare the current reality to.

Having this picture of what we want is extremely powerful, but often we use it to make the current reality wrong.  “It shouldn’t be this way.”  “You shouldn’t be like this.”  We beat ourselves and others up for not living up to our pictures rather than using our pictures to create our future.  What if you started interacting with others from your vision of who you want them to be.  Doing this will likely not make them change overnight, but  stop and think about what it’s like to be around someone who only sees the best in you.  Doesn’t it feel great?   Doesn’t it make you want to grow, become more, become better?  There’s something truly magical about being seen this way.

What is that magic?  It’s space.  It’s space to be who we are now and more importantly, it’s the space to grow and become more.  You’re always going to have two pictures – the picture of how life is is AND the picture of how you want life to be.  Transformation begins when you stop using your picture of how you think things should be to make the current reality wrong, and start using that picture to create life how you want it to be.  Just because there’s little evidence to support your future doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.

That’s the mindset of a designer - being able to see past how things are to create what’s next.  This possibility, this magic is available to us at every moment in every situation.  Some might think that this point of view is naïve; that we can’t just deny the possibility that sometimes bad things happen.  A designer of life doesn’t deny anything.  A designer knows that bad things might happen.  A designer knows there are risks to creating.  A designer knows that failure is a possibility.  But what a designer of life also knows is that picture of what he or she wants isn’t going anywhere.  It’s here to stay.  It’s part of who they are.  It deserves to be honored and used in a way that will actually make a difference for people.  Either that picture will be used to crucify the current reality or it will be used as the source for making life better.

How are you going to use your picture of the future?