By Norman Kay
Wiki suggests that the horizon is the apparent line that separates earth from sky.
The line that divides all visible directions into two categories: those that intersect the Earth’s surface, and those that do not. The distance to the visible horizon has long been vital to survival and successful navigation especially at sea, because it determined an observer’s maximum range of vision and communication. Note the operative words; ‘at sea’, and vision.
I trained under visual flight rules, using attitude flying to control my aircraft. It guides the pilot, using the visual relationship between the aircraft’s nose and the horizon line to align the flight.
How often have you been asked what your horizon line is for your job, your program, your company or your aspirations? It’s out there somewhere, or your straddling it, or perhaps you see that dance and want it in perpetual flux.
It’s an open-ended question that shouldn’t be limited to the business perspective. I think it concerns our overall experience. Everything that nudges our physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual – our entire cognitive reality or illusion.
So you peer out, straining your retina, but it’s pure blank space – no gift of wisdom awaits. Um… that’s the point. It’s a metaphor for either a flat line – you’re dead, or it conveys all the potential of the Universal energy.
It’s a Vision that you imaginate, eventually receding to obscurity, unless you lash it to your purpose.
Construct your horizon as the completed product, the fully defined service, application, goal, the ultimate whatever. I imagine a rainbow as a “beginner’s” horizon. Often it appears after a storm. And it comes in beautiful colors. Grab it fast before it teases you and vanishes like a whim. Optimally it’s a 360 degree visual. It’s called life. Not ‘work & life’ – just life.
What is it that you can become deeply in touch with that ultimately pings… that works! Satisfaction comes to mind. Maybe it’s challenge or big reach. Do we want to live our lives tactically, or elevate strategically, or ultimately to the horizon point? I suggest that we dwell on that horizon, coursing in reverse to assess our strategy, and then to the tactics that will support the strategy that crosses the end zone at the horizon.
How do you want to feel at the end of each day – everyday?
What’s it like waking up Monday morning?
We’re so concerned with the creepy finality of life while our continual presence slithers away in some lazy haze.
So, our horizon is an apt metaphor.
After all, what’s a meta for anyway.
Just sayin….