VIII. At Our Best… ↑
65. We think and care big picture and long-term.
We humans have the ability to imagine the future, and to consider how an action today might affect that future. And we have the ability to see a big picture, considering others who might be affected, and to envision second- and third-order consequences of our actions.
These abilities allow us to put together plans of how we might achieve things of significant scope, that may take long periods to achieve.
But what’s more, and more remarkable, we have the capacity to care for future generations, and for those we’ve never met, and might never meet.
Words from Others on this Topic
Think globally, act locally.
What are we here for if not to enjoy life eternal, solve what problems we can, give light, peace and joy to our fellow-man, and leave this dear fucked-up planet a little healthier than when we were born?
Henry Miller, 1918, from the remarks “Memo to Self”
A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.
Elton Trueblood, 1951, from the book The Life We Prize
In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.
Iroquois Nation, from Great Law of the Iroquois
I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
John Adams, 12 May 1780, from the letter “to Abigail Adams”
The twentieth century will be chiefly remembered by future generations not as an era of political conflicts or technical inventions, but as an age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective.
What we’re doing now is trying to think like nature, in the sense that we are aware that species that have gone before us have disappeared from the face of the Earth. We’d like to use our intelligence and our creative capacity to prolong our presence on the face of the Earth as long as possible. It requires, therefore, that we develop the kinds of tactics and strategies amongst ourselves so as to assure that this can occur, to assure that we will not destroy ourselves or the planet, to make it uninhabitable and to allow the fullness of the potential of the individual to be expressed, to flower.
Jonas Salk, 1990, from the interview “Jonas Salk with Bill Moyers”
Many people interpret the invisible hand concept as saying, we should just take our hands off the steering wheel like there’s nothing we should do. I don’t agree with that. Humans aren’t designed to accept the world as is, so to just say “whatever” is denying what makes us thrive as a species. More than any other creature on Earth, we have the capacity to envision a better future and make it a reality. We are askers of the question, “What kind of world do we want?” And perhaps even more importantly, we can ask the follow-up question, “How do we build that?”
Victor Hwang, 03 Aug 2023, from the interview “Evolution, Complexity, and the Third Way of Entrepreneurship: A Capstone Conversation with Victor Hwang”
Relevant Reference Models
- An element of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Next: 66. We practice and expect fair play