Op daardie dag
Bob Dylan in the 60s:
“….come gather 'round people, wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown.
and accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone.
then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone,
for the times they are a-changin'…”
"Master of ceremonies, …., ….., honored guests, and then most important tonight, our students!"
In the next less than 10 minutes I will touch on the changing times we
are living in, then speculate on the effect it has on the world and on each of
us. Lastly I will share some thoughts in the context of tonight on how we are
to approach the immediate future.
My interaction with Unisa is a delightful experience. Thank you for
this opportunity to here at this special moment and to deliver this short
address.
In my life, many dreams came true, yet some are still evading me … to be
tall, dark and handsome!
We live in the shadows of several revolutions. The Berlin wall in 1989,
a new South Africa in 1994 and the greatest of them all, the coming of the
Internet in 1992. We live in times of a war. It is a war for knowledge, ideas
and the marketplace.
The most fascinating about it is that we ain’t seen nothing yet.
It is the best seen in the behavior of teenagers.
It is the only time ever when teenagers are actually reading and
writing! They thrive on email, Facebook and manage their complicated love lives
with SMS!.
South Africa is a wonderful place. I sense urgency amongst so many to
make things work. We are doing better by the day, we are out of the target zone
of international fundamentalists, our behavior is improving and if we do it right, great things may happen. .
Back to the future; The coming of biotechnology will be a bigger thing
that Information technology. The topic alone is so involved but will have
impact on every sphere of our lives. Growing of artificial limbs and glands, cloning,
plants that glow in the dark, frost-free strawberries…
We are on the edge of our energy supplies and think windmills and solar
cells will do it might be a dream. By turning down our geysers and drive with a
light foot might help a lot already.
Fasten your seatbelts: the future will be
fascinating yet.
The times are indeed a-changin’
How are we coping?
Come with me to the shelves of Exclusive Books.
“Nine vital food commandments”, “Four ways to a successful marriage”,
“The two minute health check”, “Seven habits of highly effective people”, “become
rich overnight: ten key steps” and even “Seven secrets to a hot relationship”. The
worst one is “how to cope with the teenager in the house in four easy steps!”
You do not cope with a teenager, you only survive them!.
It seems that seven is the winning number.
We swallow hands full of vitamins yet the only vegetables most of us
ever eat are French Fries. Our emotional problems are solved over the shelf at
Hyperpharm with a magic cure and we believe that our shape and size, looks and
behavior can be quickly fixed with it.
May I make a confession here tonight: I spent many hours in the
pharmacies of Pretoria looking in vain for a miracle to make me tall dark and
handsome!
The world is drowning in an Elastoplast culture and the quick fix.
Eventually it leads to disappointment.
Sitting here tonight celebrating the end of a successful study period
was not easy.
There was no quick fix; it is the result of hard work, experience and
the use of mentorship. All of us knows what it is to attain success: there is
no easy way..
There are wonderful books on personal strategy on the shelves, but
please do not forget the lessons of old works, notable classical stories. In my
view the some the best books on strategy are stories like “ The Wizard of Oz “.
In the Wizard of Oz the main character is a girl called Dorothy. Before her was a mountain with the top hidden by cloud. She asked the Tinman and the Strawman: “how do I get to Oz and to the wizard? “
The Tinman answered: “Just follow the yellow brick road!“ Ladies and gentleman, there are no yellow brick road anymore. There is no simple route towards a future more riddled with uncertainty as ever before.
Business will always be a people contact game. The inherent nature of
people will remain the same and people skills will become more important in an
uncertain world.
On the surface we look fine yet inside we are still human beings who are
afraid, uncertain, love to be loved and hate to be hated. Perhaps the biggest
challenge and opportunity lies in understanding this.
Ladies and gentleman: the winners of the future will not be the big and
the powerful; it will not be the fast or the rich. The winners of tomorrow will
be those that can change direction, are indispensable and can care for others.
All that really matters is indispensability, adaptability and a caring
attitude.
Adaptability is unfortunately so difficult because before we can begin
something new, we must end what use to be.
Before we can become a different person we must let go of our old
identity, before we can learn new things, we must unlearn the old. Beginnings
depend on endings. The problem is we do not like endings….
Beethoven lost his ears and then wrote the most beautiful music in all history.
A young man in France 150 years ago lost his eyes at the age of four and
was banished for life to live amongst people with mental disability.
By the age of ten he designed a written language for the blind and
changed the lives of half a billion blind people. His name was Louis Braille.
The jobs of the future will be more and more without a label. Albert
Hammond who sang about his parents this captured in another 1960’s song:
“…..well, they
used to sit and speculate upon their son's career,
a lawyer or a doctor or a civil engineer,
just give me bread and water, put a guitar in my hand,
'cause all I need is music and the free electric band … ”
It will be less of
what we are called and more of what we can do. It is about being indispensable.
Tonight is a milestone for all of us that received our degrees, as knowledge
is the first step to indispensability. Indispensability is about taking the new
knowledge acquired in the course and to combine it with the unique person I am.
In this room are 500 people with 5000 stories to tell. We are all different,
exploit it!
Look at those on that side of the room. Without their support it simply
would not be possible. Please applaud them!
There is a new yellow brick road: the road of adaptability,
indispensability and caring for others. This is the road of success in this turbulent
world of ours. Embark on it, you will never regret the moment.
Consider yourselves lucky, we are living in the most interesting time in
all history. We live in a country on the forefront of change. It is not and
will not be easy, yet it will be abound with opportunity. I urge you grasp
every moment and make the best of it.
To conclude, I believe that every person has been put on this
earth for one purpose and one purpose only. It is to serve others.
It does not matter
if you build a bridge, paint a picture or invent a labour saving device or even
run a petrol station.
The point is we
should try to leave this earth a better than you found it. If we do what we can
within our own limitations, you are destined to be happy
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