The World Is Improvised
When I was growing up, there was a lot I didn’t quite understand yet. I didn't know how things worked, how the world was put together. It starts small: when you’re a little kid taking your first steps at school, just beginning to make sense of the world, you look up to your parents and your teacher, who seem to hold all the wisdom. But the older you get, the more you realize that even though they’re good at what they do, teachers are often just figuring things out as they go, making decisions based on what seems best at the time.
That realization keeps growing. You get your first job and assume your boss must have it all figured out. Until you become the boss yourself somewhere, and find out that even at that level, you’re often just guessing. At first, you look up to the board of a club or organization, admiring the confidence they seem to have in their decisions, until you eventually join such a board and discover that things work a little differently behind the scenes.
Today I read an interview with a Dutch politician who has operated at a fairly high political level, meeting with world leaders behind closed doors to make important decisions. Surely, I thought, that must be a level where everyone involved truly knows what they’re doing and makes choices that are best for the country and humanity.
I should have known better. In the interview, this politician revealed, loosely translated, the following:
After that meeting, my conclusion was: even on the highest stage, wisdom is not guaranteed. There is no room filled with authoritative people of a better moral level.
Even though I could’ve guessed that, it still hits you in the face a bit when someone of that stature says it out loud. Yet, in the same interview, the politician also puts a more positive spin on the story:
That was actually somewhat liberating for me: there is no higher caliber you need to have in order to be able to do this job. I had the skills to keep up. I just didn’t have the position.
So, anyone with a bit of awareness and the will to make a change does have the ability to do so, even if not everyone is always in a position to actually make it happen.
Dream big, I’d say.