I cycled 203km a few days ago as a way of marking the Summer solstice, the furthest I’ve ever cycled. Days had been merging into one and I wanted something to look back on in future years, a kind of ‘before the ride’ and ‘after the ride’, a way of getting some personal perspective on our current world.
My ride took me through the Cotswolds – Malmesbury, Tetbury and up towards Cheltenham – through ancient landscape, sometimes on arrow-straight Roman roads, often on rolling, meandering lanes. We passed Neolithic standing stones, the site of a 3rd Century Roman villa, a 12th Century Abbey, villages that trace their identity over a thousand and more years.
There’s so much that’s wrong with our current world and ways of living on the Earth, so many pressing problems to fix. Yet as these crowd around us, it can be hard to feel there could be a far future, of people quietly enjoying the legacy of our generation’s time on this planet. It can be hard to feel it is even worth creating a vision of a better future.
Mark Loftus
Founder & CEO – Jyre
Snippet, Reflect, Fix
Snippet
Traditionally, prudence is seen as the mother of the virtues, the means by which we judge between virtuous and vicious acts. More recently it’s become synonymous with cautiousness and risk-aversion, out of kilter with our collective self-image as fast-moving and bold. In truth prudence is really about acting now in ways that our future selves and generations will thank us for.
Reflect
What will your self in 2 years’ time thank you for what you are doing now? And how about in 20 years’ time? And what legacy from this time would you like our inheritors to value in 200 years’ time?
Fix
When you find yourself caught in the urgency to keep up with the latest tweets, the latest stories, the latest technology, try to picture what people in the unthinkably far future might make of our current preoccupations… take a moment to breathe… and then act.