Ups and
downs. Successes and failures. Sweet and bitter memories. The year has ended
with experiences ranging wildly between extremes.
The New
Year has dawned with lots of hopes and expectations and us unsure of the path
to be travelled.
At this
juncture, I would like share an excellent analysis about the future by Peter Theil, who co-founded PayPal and
made investments in companies like Facebook, SpaceX and LinkedIn. In his just released book
Zero to One asks ‘CAN YOU CONTROL
THE FUTURE?’ The excerpts:
You can expect the future to take a definite form or you can treat it as hastily uncertain. If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand is in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.You can also expect the future to be either better or worse than the present. Optimists welcome the future; pessimists fear it. Combining these possibilities yields four views.
Indefinite Pessimism: An indefinite pessimist looks out onto a bleak future but he has no idea what to do about it. He just reacts to events as they happen and hope things don’t get worse. The indefinite pessimist can’t know whether the inevitable decline will be fast or slow, catastrophe or gradual. All he can do is wait for it to happen.
Definite Pessimism: A definite pessimist believes future can be known, but since it will be bleak, he must prepare for it.
Definite Optimism: To a definite optimist, the future will be better than the present if he plans and works to make it better.
Indefinite Optimism: To an indefinite optimist, the future will be better, but he doesn’t know how exactly, so he won’t make any specific plans. He expects to profit from the future but sees no reason to design it concretely.
Now, can you control your future?
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
