A 2020 Vision

Will 2020 be better or worse than 2019, or much the same? How many of you have answered this in the last week? Are you really a pessimist if you answer worse, an optimist if you believe better or a realist if you honestly think much the same? If you did answer with one of these options you possibly feel you have little control of the future and pretty much have to accept whatever happens, good or bad. But as Back to the Future’s Doc. Brown said, “the future has yet to be written….,” can we therefore not try to make 2020 a better year than 2019? It will take some effort and change, more than buying a lotto ticket. It may not even work out the way you hope, but having a go has got to be better than just continuing to tread water or kick dust. Yes, writing this is easier than actually doing something tangible towards making 2020 a better year. And if bush fires or drought are literally knocking on your door this could be read as motivational BS. However, I did have the opportunity before Christmas to visit 4 Central Queensland properties that were in severe drought conditions. Conditions so dry that the smell of far away smoke caused no fear, as the grazier said there is nothing to burn between where the fire possibly is and his home. At another property wild pigs are not considered a pest, more like vacuum cleaners, as they eat most of the bones of the carcasses. These property owners didn’t sit back and just pray for rain, they take the molasses out each day to feed their remaining stock, invest in water infrastructure and make improvements that need to be done to put them in a position to benefit when the rain does come. Some might call this optimism, which you need a dose of, but it is more about creating the future they want, a future of living and raising a family on the land, not having the banks take it away. Not every story will end well, but there will be more successful ones than those that don’t go out and try to create the future they want, relying solely on the hand of fate than enduring it. As Peter Drucker said, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” This doesn’t have to be an individual journey though, much more can be achieved working with others. As we clamour for a new name for the generation to follow Gen Z (Alpha is one proposal) could we forget about what supposedly makes us different, like age, adoption of technology, agendas, beliefs, etc., and look at what we all want, like a healthier planet. And how pooling our skills and knowledge can achieve this. That is a future to create. This journey only needs to begin with small steps (some have already started), and the more of us taking them the quicker and more lasting the change. Would it not be good to look back at this new decade as the WE Decade, the decade we all forsake the ‘I’ mentality and started thinking and acting on what is best for ‘we’, instead of ‘me’.