Vision

I'm serving on a committee for the school district to look at needs of the district today and in the coming years. We have toured all the facilities and now will spend some time talking through what the priorities need to be for the next 5, 10, 20 years. As I've toured the schools, I've seen plenty of quick fixes that need to be made - carpet that needs to be replaced, signage that needs to be fixed, driveways and parking that need repairs. Along with those things, we are considering what facilities need to be improved or added to provide the best academic opportunities for our kids.

As we've worked through this process, it has struck me how important vision and the ability to cast the vision for the future is. Casting a vision is more than a slick marketing theme though that can be a part of it. Casting a vision really requires someone who can weather storms because there will be plenty of naysayers but the vision cannot grow dim. It's rather easy to figure out what needs to be fixed today but to think about what needs to be done for the future is a bigger battle.

My life is so similar. It's easy for me to focus on what I need to do today instead of spending some time preparing myself for the future. Day to day, I can fix little mistakes and postpone decisions but preparing myself for the future takes more thought, more work, more effort and...and the kicker is the payoff doesn't come for many, many years. Eternity is a long time and something that I can easily postpone thinking about while I wrestle with the mundane tasks of today. Yet, I need to cast my vision and start working on my future because it is the most important decisions I can make today.