Making the Future Happen

Why am I here? To make the future happen, not just for my children but all children.

One day I was chatting with a new employee in the hallway. The CEO of my company walked by, then stopped abruptly, turned around and alerted the new member that talking to me may soon translate into having something to read — an article or even a book. I took that as a compliment.

I am an avid reader and I'm known among my friends as the "walking index," always ready to point out an article or a book on whatever topic the conversation may revolve around. The Futurist is one of my main sources for retrieving meaningful content and a springboard for further research. I discovered your publication decades ago and instantly fell in love with it. It's one of the few publications that I read from beginning to end. I consider it the roadmap for my life-long learning experience. It stretches the limits of my imagination into directions that I can't possibly think of on my own. The articles are well written and inspiring. They are sparks for creative minds, taking the reader into worlds waiting to be explored. It’s in the juxtaposition of ideas that innovation and learning happens, and The Futurist provides fertile ground for those seeds.

Having grown up multilingual and having a keen interest in foreign languages and cultures, language structures, etymology and semantics, I chose to become a linguist. I then began my professional career as an indexer and quickly discovered that I had a whole new world at my fingertips — content to analyze, structures to build, topics to articulate, semantics to apply, words to work with in new ways. I started to look at words not just from a linguistic point of view but also from an information-management point of view, and new worlds started to unfold under my eyes. With the advent of electronic publishing, more and more opportunities emerged for me in the field of information science, search technologies and retrieval, product design and features, etc. The forward-looking minds that The Futurist features had a tremendous impact on my 26 years of post-graduate education. I learned to take the tasks at hand and venture into other areas (disciplines that were none of my business — or so some said) such as biology, design, education, architecture, technology, gastronomy, interior decorating, etc., to find solutions to unanswered questions. The solutions to problems don't necessarily lie in the area of one's expertise. Everything is intertwingled and, yet, there is so much order in everything — if one can only see the patterns. In my professional quest for knowledge, I have discovered how my findings also apply to personal areas of fulfillment and happiness, relationships, corporate management, teamwork, economic and social networks, environmental issues, and on and on.

Here's my survival kit for our children:

• Our formal education often fails us miserably. It often takes the joy out of learning. A linear theoretical approach is a miserable approach towards preparing us for the world. I would encourage everyone to plan to be a life-long learner. Learn to listen and look behind the obvious. You are being shaped by what you find. Be a futurist!
• Some things have to be taken literally, and others are there to be tampered with. Make sure you know the difference.
• Dare to be different. Listen to the experts, scrutinize ideas, and then do your thing but prove and validate, prove and validate along the way. There are bullies everywhere.
• Think out of the box? Does it have to be a box? Now you’re in the innovation zone. Miracles can happen there.
• Understand architecture of both tangible and intangible things. Foundations are the stronghold of systems. Build on them.
• Understand the laws of the universe. Work with them. There is power in systems.
• Understand life. Ecology. Coevolution. Communication. The message and the solution are everywhere. Let them inspire you. Biodiversity refers to more than the obvious.
• Invest wisely. There is no monopoly on knowledge. Knowledge is power. It is portable.
• Know the difference between form and function, fluff and substance, real progress and sheer activity, price and value, honesty and deception and keep adding to this list.
• Don’t let technology blind you. It's only as good as the one writing the code. Tame it, it's just an enabler in our quest to make this world a better place.
• Be a dreamer. Understand that imagination is a rare commodity. Be a surrealist, but be practical at the same time. There’s truth in a paradox. Life is full of contradictions. And that is a good thing.
• Results matter. Everything has a context. Not all metrics are created equal. Know what to count and what counts.
• Understand reality. You are not inventing the world, just reinventing it. Rearranging, reconnecting, reshuffling. Know where your effort matters.
• There is great power in proverbs. Expand them into stories. Reduce stories to proverbs. Pass them on. It’s the wisdom of generations.
• Learn. Produce. Enhance. Shed prejudice. Embrace. Then teach. Learn and teach. Teach and learn. Give back to the family, the company, the community, the world. They give back to you. Be a citizen of the world.
• There's no destination just a complex path. Arm yourself for the trip. Obstacles are new opportunities. They give you strength to grow. Success does not come in gift boxes.
• Appreciate your friends. Adore your critics and your enemies. They make your growth possible. They make life what it is.
• Nothing in life is useless. It can always serve as a bad example. And that applies to people too.
• There is no ego in greatness. Be generous. Give and give and then give some more. Be tolerant. Be compassionate. Love unconditionally.
• Know that your work never ends. There will be little appreciation. Stand up for the right things, it is your duty.
• Find your niche. Find something greater than yourself. Be passionate. It is a natural “high.” Nothing great can be accomplished without passion. It is not an easy road but a passionate life is a fulfilling life. With passion you never have to “work” in your life and, yet, you have to start from scratch and keep on scratching.

Carmen-Maria Hetrea