Vision

Another in my continuing series of posts on my 13 virtues. For more information see the beginning of my wisdom post here.

Dictionary Definition. A manifestation to the senses of something immaterial: the act or power of seeing.

Dedicant Handbook Definition. The ability to broaden one’s perspective to have a greater understanding of our place and role in the cosmos, relating to the past, present and future.

My first association with the word was as a lightly defined corporate buzzword used to make upper management feel good while essentially doing nothing for the larger organization. A strongly negative definition to say the least. There was a strong enough initial response I considered not using Vision as one of my own virtues, and writing this essay as to why I thought it was not a virtue but a buzzword. However, in order to do so I spent a lot of time in thought and meditation on whether or not to include Vision in my virtues. After a few weeks of thinking things through I decided to keep Vision as a virtue because it has the ability to be much more than a buzzword. Vision, to me, is the ability to plan and envision the future after fairly assessing the past and present.

One of the many ideas that drew me to ADF as a religious and spiritual system was the idea that the founder had a vision for the future. He has set goals and those goals are still alive in the current organization. I see them referred to as directions to keep the organization striving towards excellence and that vision also allows ways to assess growth and change over time.

Others in this series:
Wisdom
Piety