Computer scientist Alan Kay once observed that “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” What we can create is, in fact, instrumental in shaping our future. As John Schaar puts it, “The future is not a result of choices among alternate paths offered by the present…the paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination.”

Some may say to this idea of inventing the future that this comes from a place of privilege and access to power. In short, we are all not as able to create our own paths due to powerful forces beyond our control. If I am a young person living on the street with an addiction, how can I effect change in my life? If I am HIV+ and have two young kids to care for, how can I make my own path? If I am living in fear for my safety, how can I invent my future, and by doing so, change both myself and my destination?

Pema Chodron, the first American woman to be ordained in the Tibetan tradition, refers in her writing to approaching our lives as an experiment. We could experiment in slowing down our usual habitual reactions to situations to interrupt this usual chain reaction and not spin off in our usual way. This space she refers to as the gap between what is and what we could be.

For the past twenty years of working with communities around the globe, I have seen people answer these questions time and time again. How do they do it? In large measure, this remains a mystery to me, a mystery of the strength of the human spirit. But I do know that at some point each person latched onto that powerful elixir of hope and began to take their first step toward re-authoring their story. In doing so, they began to shift their perspective enough so that others around them began to view them in a new light; alliances took shape, partnerships were formed, and solidarity in the belief that a new future could emerge took hold over time.

Annette Simmons, author of Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins, makes the connection between the importance of tapping into new narratives that hold the potential to create change: “When you activate new stories, you transport people to new points of view, change meaning, behaviour, and in that way you change the future.”

Whether you are an individual looking to create change in your own life or in your community, or whether you are an organization looking for a new strategic direction or to create an operational culture of innovation with your staff, authoring new narratives can change the horizon of our expectations. In this time of economic recession, fear and apprehension and nagging uncertainty, it may feel quite challenging to reinvent our future. However, the past tells us that it is at these very points in time when we are called upon to activate new possibilities to create, through our leadership, new stories of hope and of change.

Necessity is the mother of invention. What change will the stories of your future create?

Pattie LaCroix has provided strategic leadership in crafting integrated communications and fundraising strategies to nonprofits for more than a decade. As CEO of Catapult Media she is passionate about the power of storytelling in engaging your audience and building support for your work. You can reach Pattie at www.catapultmedia.ca.