By Ian Ortega
One of the best things that ever happened to me was stumbling upon ‘decades-thinking’. It was close to that first moment as a child when I saw Lake Victoria. I was blown away. For the first time, I was freed from the shackles of short-term thinking. I could think in a longer perspective. And goodness, how that improves your decision-making.
When I stumbled on this new world, I couldn’t wait to tell all my friends about it. I happened to belong to a social group – The Decadenians, and so at the next meetup, I introduced them to the 10-year plan. At the time, it was 2020, so the ten years will elapse in 2030. I told them, many thinks seem impossible in the short term but when you view them through this window of a decade, then almost everything is possible.
It also freed me from a rush. I could for the first time trust time. Recently I read that time is the best signal-to-noise filter. That many people can fake it in the short term, but it’s just almost impossible to fake it for 10 years. Many people drown in their own lies over 10 years. I started to work on 10-year projects. Suddenly, things that took 3 years or less looked so minute, and quick wins. Time will move, and as it moves, it brings about many changes, many evolutions, many transformations. I have always wanted to work with time.
That’s what gives me confidence in this O.G project. Perhaps we shall struggle for the next one year. But surely, maintaining seriousness for the next 5 to 10 years, there is no way we can be wrong. If you can be both serious and obsessed, you will always be right in the long-term. And perhaps this is also a better judgment for what you are passionate about. What is it you can commit to for the next 10 years? What life project? What impact would you like to make in the next decade? Most overnight successes are decade-long projects.
It’s organizations that decided to dedicate time to these kinds of projects that will still survive in the next decade, or put simply, will still hold fort. You can bet on time, you can bet on that clock, that given enough long-term obsession, mountains can be flattened.