We all know people who are stuck in the status quo. Even though the world has changed they are nostalgic about the past and continue to think that if they just stick with it they can recreate the glory days.
The newspaper and music industries were stuck in the status quo as the digital revolution changed the world.
Sports teams that win a championship & then hold on to the heroes who won that championship way past their prime, they’re stuck in the status quo too.
One of the most interesting concepts Seth Godin writes about in his latest book Linchpin is being stuck in the “future quo.” He writes:
For many of us, the happiest future is one that’s precisely like the past, except a little better.
Nostalgia for the future is that very same feeling about things that haven’t happened yet.
Nostalgia for the Future
We have this tendency to fantasize about the future. We map out in our minds what position we’ll have at work in 10 years if things go according to plan and we get promoted every 2 years. Shortly after our kids are born, we start imagining them playing baseball or doing ballet, graduating from high school, going to college, getting married, having grand children. In our businesses, churches and non-profits, we put together 5 and 10 year strategic plans, even though we have no idea what the economy or technology will be like in 5 years.
In some ways this is good. If you don’t know where you want to be in your career in 10 years, you probably won’t get there. If you don’t imagine your kids in college, you probably won’t save enough money to get them there. And every organization needs a strategic plan.
Attached to an Outcome
But the problem comes when we go beyond merely planning for the future to longing for a specific future. We become “attached to an outcome, often one we can’t control.”
“You don’t want your head of business development to have serious nostalgia for a particular future. If she does, she’ll hold on to the deals and structures that make that future appear, and undervalue alternatives.”
You don’t want your kids to have a serious nostalgia for the future or they will be crushed when their boyfriend breaks up with them, they don’t make the team, or they don’t become an astronaut.
From the Christian perspective, when we’re stuck in the future quo, we are unwilling to follow God when his plans for us deviate from the future we’ve imagined for ourselves.
If we have nostalgia for a future that includes a new car, we resist God’s leading to give to someone in need. When we have nostalgia for corner office, we resist God’s leading to work less serve others. When we have nostalgia for a church that will forever sing the songs we like, teach on the scripture we like, and include people who look like us, we resist God leading our church to change. When we have nostalgia for a future where everyone we knows lives into their 90s, we despair when people have accidents or get sick.
How tight is your grip?
How nostalgic are you for the future? Are you locked into the future quo? Do you find yourself anxious or even fearful about losing something you don’t even have yet?
Or are you adaptable? Do you hold on loosely to your dreams?
Godin writes, “The linchpin is able to invent a future, fall in love with it, live in it – and then abandon it on a moment’s notice.” Agree? Disagree?
[image by wildtexas]
“Godin writes, ‘The linchpin is able to invent a future, fall in love with it, live in it – and then abandon it on a moment’s notice.’ Agree? Disagree?”
This is not a simple “yes/no” question. “Abandon on a moment’s notice” appears to be a value-free statement, but is it one of “self-first, last and always”, or does it address those on “the team” whether family, business, church or other relationships. Without well-grounded values and ethics, the collateral damage from the quote (without context presented) can be horrendous. What promises, contracts, obligations, sacred vows are compromised, abandoned? A true “linchpin” would not disconnect, setting up a trainwreck, without having dialogued, planned, resourced, and communicated how to adapt to the new path with all relationships.
This is a well-reasoned post, and stimulates discussion to expand on a “linchpin” parameter in an ethical manner.
Thank you.
Randy, that’s a great point. A person shouldn’t jump ship or abandon their job, team, family, or church anytime things get tough. I’m sure Seth wasn’t suggesting that, though, I can see how that quote could be interpreted that way.
I say hold tight to our family, our friends, and our commitments but hold loosely to our goals and dreams.
Paul, perhaps this is not quite the same issue you are describing, but it’s similar.
All my life I’ve found myself looking forward to the “next thing”, the next event. It’s sort of what keeps me going. I finish one thing then I say, “OK, what’s next?” And usually, there is something next. I dive into that “something”, but within a short period, I find myself thinking about the next thing.
This is not a good way to live because it leaves one in a continuous state of dissatisfaction. The next thing will be better, more stimulating, more satisfying, but like tomorrow, the next thing never comes – there’s always the next thing.
My prayer is that God will teach me Paul’s way of living (Phil 4:11).
Thanks Don. I agree, not exactly the same thing, but another way we can end up dissatisfied and not living for today. It takes focus and effort to live each day in the moment, doesn’t it?
That is so true that we forget about living our present by worrying about what could happen in the future, the fact of the matter is we may never get to live the future but we worry so much that we are blind to see what it is in front of us – the gift of life, the gift of doing everything we want to do today.
Well said, Juan.
I was always taught in business that outcomes are all that matter, until I realised that Paul said, “I sowed, another watered, God added the increase”. The point is that the outworking of our faithful inputs today will beget a greater outcome, for God works all thing together for good to them that love God. Outcomes-based thinking leads to performance, one-upmanship, stress and many other negatives. I once had to help build a church, but an old German perfectionist carried on plodding away long after the rest of us were worn out from our exuberance – as a result, his steady inputs got the work done, but our efforts just added grunt and sweat.
For years I believed in outcomes, because life taught us that. Our schooling system was also outcomes based. Then one day I felt challenged to review that and saw that Paul was an input man, who argued for sowing and reaping whilst trusting God to add the increase. We actually do better when we worry about persistently adding input to input and line to line, for that is progressive and objective. A leading CEO said “I watch the cents, the Dollars take care of themselves”, confirming the need to keep on adding stone to stone, whilst entrusting the bigger outcomes to God, which is useful given that we generally do not grasp what God is doing with our lives until He has done it.
I prefer to live this and wait to see what my future holds. I believe it will be ok…