 |
 8/6/2007 |
That "vision thing"
|
I remember a former president of the United States kept referring to “that vision thing.”
What he meant, as I understand it, is the expectation that a leader has a vision – the ability to see what course to take, what action to follow, and what decisions to make.
“That vision thing” is important for any sort of leader – not just the leaders of countries – and it’s important for followers as well – because if life is a journey, the ability to determine your destination is paramount – and determining the correct destination takes vision.
I’m certain there are those people who are born with the inherent ability to make the right decision – each and every time. I’m sure they’re out there, somewhere – I just haven’t met any of them.
Most of us require a bit of learning and wisdom before we are fit to declare that we have “vision.” For most of us, that learning and wisdom comes about after making a lot of other choices, some of them wrong and some of them right.
Unlike eyesight, this vision is not inbred – it’s something you have to learn. And although one person might be inherently better at grabbing a particular concept than another person, it’s still going to take a bit of seasoning and a bit of learning before most of us will be able to declare ourselves “visionary.”
The good side to this? It means that with learning and experience, we can gain a level of “vision” in our lives. We can learn to pick the right destinations, and choose the right road, even though in the past we might have chosen poorly.
We are not yet lost.
Just as seeing clearly down the road of life may require a clean set of sunglasses, gaining clear vision requires a clear understanding of what our challenges are, and how to address them.
I know in my own life, I have challenges aplenty. None of us is immune from problems – we all have them, or if we don’t have them currently, we soon will.
But we cannot let our past difficulties keep us from developing a vision of where we wish to go with our lives – and then setting down that path.
Are you having difficulties in your own life? Join the club. Most of us have challenges of one sort or another – but you can learn from those difficulties. The learning you acquire helps you gain a better understanding of where you truly want to go in the future – and the wisdom to get you there.
Wisdom, after all, is largely acquired by examining our mistakes, our triumphs, our highs and our lows. Wisdom comes from analyzing and digesting the mistakes we’ve made and the choices we’ve chosen.
Vision is taking that wisdom and applying it to determine the possibilities for our future – to see farther than we can see presently, by applying the wisdom of our past, mixing it with our hope for the future, and determining a course of action that gives our future focus.
Do you like reading our weekly Monday Motivation feature? Help support WeekdayWisdom.com by making your purchases from Amazon.com, Atlas Pen, or Nightingale-Conant through one of our links. If you'd like, just setting this link to Amazon.com (http://WeekdayWisdom.com/amazon) as a bookmark and then using it for your purchases (or clicking on any Amazon link on website) will give us a small percentage of your purchase, at no extra cost to you. It's much appreciated!
