“It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.”
– Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister during World War II
“To predict the future, we need logic; but we also need faith and imagination, which can sometimes defy logic itself.”
– Sir Arthur C. Clarke, British author
A couple o’ Brits on the idea of prediction.
Quick! Name the people you know who are good at predicting the future. Yeah, I didn’t think so.
So, why do we spend so much time on it?
Yes, we have to forecast our businesses, and we have to save for retirement and college, and we need to use common sense. I’m pretty sure, though, that part of common sense is knowing that you can’t predict the future.
It is wise to look ahead, and logic helps. But if our goal is to get out past the horizon, faith, imagination and pragmatism are the stuff of difference makers.
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