Putting time into perspective

Original post: Aug 31, 2015

At a website called waitbutwhy.com, there is a fascinating infographic that discusses time from a very interesting perspective. It's far too large to replicate in its entirety, but I thought I would show you the part that goes back to Christopher Columbus landing in America. It's something of an arbitrary point, but it does give you some idea of how we perceive historical events. It's interesting to compare that to our perception of the current moment to try to get some mental idea of how long ago some of these events really were.

I was quite amazed to think about how different history might be for someone who is 30 than it is for me. I don't think of someone at that age as that much younger than me, but I think the reality is quite different!

There were a couple of fun facts sprinkled in there:

• A current 90 year-old was born closer to Lincoln's assassination than to our current day!
• The oldest living human today is 116. She was born closer to Washington becoming the first president than to today!

Viewing the future through the lens of the past

Original post:  May 9, 2012

We are often limited by our history. The lessons that we have learned imprint us powerfully. We often assume that what has succeeded for us in the past will always succeed for us in the future.

Much of that is inevitable. It's hard to imagine a world that takes our comfortable world views and completely inverts them. I can imagine that it is really hard for someone who is working at a newspaper trying to deal with the threat of online news. Yet that is the reality we are faced with today.

The theme of the GHX conference is "Shape What Comes Next." Bruce Johnson, the CEO of GHX, challenged us to collaborate towards a new, more effective healthcare supply chain in order to sustain the growing demand for affordable treatment. He cautioned that we should avoid "acting with yesterday's logic."

When I look at my boys adapt so quickly to new technologies and new ways of thinking, I begin to realize that it is much easier to adapt to change when change is all you have ever known. You don't have years of hard won lessons to rewrite.

The future will have many difficult lessons ahead for us. The only certainty is that it will arrive whether we wish for it or not.