FUTURLOGICS a system of prospective thinking:
by james n. hall COPYRIGHT © 1983 BY JAMES NORMAN HALL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatever without express written permission of the publisher ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Printed in the United States of America SELF TEACHING PUBLICATIONS WEST JORDAN, UTAH 84084 USA Previous Next Table of Contents of FUTURLOGICS Chapter XIII PLANNING PLANNING VS. PREPARATION The ability to forge out of nothingness a desired result is not to be found. We must use the powers and forces at hand to our best advantage. This is the whole reason for planning: to get maximum results our of minimum effort. If the meek inherit the earth it will be because they have made plans. The meek understand that knowledge is the ultimate power. Foreknowledge is the advanced level of that power, causing the activity of planning to find its fulfillment. Preparation and planning are interrelated. Preparation is the singular mechanics of the plan. When a plan is implemented we go to a particular element of the plan and prepare it to cause the effect that fits the total image. Planning puts together various preparations so that an overall objective is achieved. Preparation takes one item and changes things to that purpose. Planning organizes various preparations toward the entire scheme. Both planning and preparation help us to live with the disparity of our present circumstances and the anxiety that waiting can produce. All plans are prepared and all preparations are planned. The two activities cannot be viewed completely separate from each other. It is instructive to compare the different features of each to help distinguish the emphasis the two procedures have on some mental approaches. The following side-by-side list aids in this understanding: PREPARATION PLANNING Purpose: to maximize effort Purpose: to maximize results; and resources to minimize effort and resources. Nature: more physical in application Nature: a mental activity done after mental activity. before physical activity. (we prepare plans) (we plan preparations) Motivation: Fear, endurance, Motivation: Want, desire, power, etc. aspiration, etc. Generating future event is Generating future event is in unavoidable, generally external imagination and internal in in origin. origin. Prepartion secures fear and Planning satisfies wants and fosters confidence establishes expectations. Lack of preparation is more common that lack of planning. This fact will show the final difference. Preparation always requires an expenditure of energy and work. Planning does not require the physical expenditure of energy. PREDICTION IMPROVES PLANNING Specific knowledge of the future allows more creative planning and a reduction of forces and energy used to achieve the goals of any plan. When excessive variables and/or contingencies are present in a plan, it requires more provisions to ensure or secure a variable to allow positive action. This cause the need for greater amounts of energy to make action based on certain expectations. In ths respect, prediction is seen as an economy in action. Good plans are based upon good prediction. If any of our predictions are derived from the modes, the distorting effects will be reflected to the planning we do. Further research may show that a person who favors a singular mode of approaching the future will plan in this mode. We might say then, that there are absolute plans, natural plans, imaginary plans, artificial plans, synthetic plans, and paradigm plans. Our aim is to develop the futurlogical mode. The planning done with the system of Futurlogics is holistic planning, which, simply put, means that the future used as a base for planning will be the broadest and most accurate possible. Wen our goals and objectives are motivation enough, we enter the assumptive mode, and the ever-present elements of assumption and risk calculations characteristic of the artificial future and its originating mode are manifest. In these cases accurate prediction is not waited for (as discussed previously), as it means that the desired result of our plans os lure us to accept assumptions rather than the more quiet statements of prediction meted out of DMP. Goals and objectives that are highly motivating set us to consider the risks versus the gains. At any rate, plans based upon assumptions and contingencies are more expensive to implement and assure in the preparatory action of the plan. What ever type of preparation, planning, waiting, extended predicting we do, it is best to found it upon the broadest base of prediction possible, and not fall into the modal restrictions that would distort all of the operations and activities that we may have relative to the stimuli of the future. THE NATURAL BASE OF PLANNING The things that will occur without the intervention of man are the natural future, and if each of us were the only person on earth, then the natural base for any planning would be the natural future. In this hypothetical situation, anything that you might do would be the synthetic future. (The synthetic future is the result largely of plans that we implement and successfully complete.) The natural base is, in this simplistic situation, the natural future. The synthetic future is founded upon the natural future caused by one person's presence and actions. But we are not alone upon this planet, and the scope of the natural future and the natural base for plans must take into account the activities of the other "shipmates" who share the planet with us. The natural base must take into its confines the synthetic future as well, since what most men do is beyond control and therefore could be accepted as natural events. Men are proucts of nature and are so enmeshed with natural events that what man does must be seen as part of the natural future also. Nevertheless, the natural base from which we begin our plans is not the same thing as the natural future. It is simply all that is beyond contol of the planners, powers, and economies. This natural base gives us a backdrop against which we can contrast the things that will occur naturally against the things that require man's action, and an application of forces in his control. Those things which will not occur without man's intervention become the subject of plans and preparations, and these may become our goals and objectives. GOALS AND THEIR ORIGIN When the natural base has been determined, we select a goal or direction for all the planning activity. Where do our goals, directives, requirements, objectives, aims, intent, etc., come from? The aims of preparation come from the natual base itself, as the thing that will occur naturally is a threat to the well-being and security of the individual, and he must do something to bolster himself to meet and endure the oncoming conditions. But in planning, the negative opposite is the spur to the production of goals and objectives. For in determining the limits of the natural base we learn it will not provide us with the things we need to achieve the level of comfort that we desire. So we must create its occurance. In the mind of man is the origin of all goals. If man were satisfied with the natural base he would not want to change anything, but would defend the continuance of the "status quo." We want things to be better than they can be naturally, so we engineer the changes that fit our desires. The purpose of our plans, there fore, is to cause something that would not occur naturally at the time we require it to become a reality. Creativity finds it employment here. And creativity requires imagination. Understanding the principle of imagination is creativity and discovery will explain the origin of goals. Goals find their genesis in our personality and in our motivational set. The contrast between our personality and our knowledge of the future will be the furnace from which our goals and objectives will be drawn and determined through tempering by experience. It is true that our appetites sometimes exceed our capacity to consume that which we desire. Human beings are the only creatures on earth who want more than is good for their purposes. This greed affects the kind and quality of goal selection. Intemperate choice of goals will have an effect on the outcome or side effects of plans. Goals should be reasonable and not strain the capacity of the planner, or the motivating effect of the goals will backlash and produce anxiety. If we set goals that are unreasonable, one of two things will occur: (1)It will stimulate the activity of preparation to bolster ourselves and seek power;(2)It will cause strain through the pressure of the unrealistic goals, and this may engender a sense of failure. Failure is a poor base to further activities. Nothing succeeds like success. Realistic goals should be kept within the scope of our resources and abilities. Many men have equal ability, but unequal resources, however unfortunate this may be, and it is a fact that must be considered with the process of goal selection. Ability can be seen as a resource, and nothing should be thought impossible, as pessimism kills the imagination which is the key to creative planning. The point is that excessive failure is taken by some to be habit forming and frames much successive behavior. INTELLIGENCE COMPENSATES FOR LACK OF RESOURCES An old saying reminds us that "the rich get richer" and this fact is hard to accept, let alone fight. The rich get richer because of the available resources. Where resources are absent, intelligence must compensate. Intelligence is the greatest resource of all, and a man who is intelligent enough can do anything he desires. In the traditional battle of "rich" versus "poor" we discover that the rich can achieve more because of the availability of resources, while the poor are so busy with a hand-to-mouth existence they have no time to set goals, even if they were to find a way of implementing them. Understanding laws and their effects makes it easier to overcome them. Often an imaginative and intelligent person seems to come from obscurity and makes his mark on history despite all opposition. We can learn much from these people. Compared to nature, even our most potent powers are feeble, and the laws that can produce success should be known by rich and poor alike. The less our resources, the greater the exercise of our intelligence to achieve success. Good plans that are followed faithfully can offset the law that only the rich get richer, because with a plan, the poor can become rich also. A good plan will get maximum results from minimum effort (or , in this case, resources). The intelligent person can, through proper planning, achieve success from proper preparations and goal selection. A rich person's success from proper preparation and goal selection. A rich person's plans can be outstripped by the vastly superior plans of the more intelligent. The individual who uses available resources efficiently can also become rich. But until we have learned the proper application of planning, should keep our goals reasonable and within reach, so that we can achieve the rule that success is the best foundation for success. RATIONALE BEHIND GOALS We should not limit ourselves. We should never undercut our potential. We should set goals and requirements that are commensurate with stimulating growth and progress. Although directed primarily toward the individual, the same principles apply to organizational goals as well. Underachievement is a sense of failure also, so goals that focus plans to a result should bring harmony and potency to the overall plan. The art of setting goals should be tempered by the character of the participants of the plan. The leader of and organization must be aware that proper goal selection and assignments do not create unwanted stress and disrupting influences in the structure of the organization. An understanding of oneself is a good basis to all levels and kinds of goal setting, both in the individual and in the leader. The problems of social engineering and control of ideas and life styles are a tremendously complicated subject where solutions, though simple, are hard to implement. But it is important in our investigation of goals and objective and their origins to question the social engineers. Where do their goals and objectives come from? What focuses their activities to promote their concepts of how "things" should be for all of us who must ride the tide of their manipulations? The question of morality arises when we realize how their plans affect our lives and influence our goals to comply with their efforts to produce their concept of society. What is our ultimate goal? A more abundant life! Positive plans with this as their ultimate goal will always produce a measure of success. LONG-RANGE PLANNING VS. SHORT-RANGE PLANNING As we have discussed, the lack of resources and power can restrict or dampen the goals and objectives we select, constraining us to set our sights low in order to avoid the problem of trying to do thing with inadequate means. We should not be broken since there is a simple solution to maintain the futurlogical approach and DMP. If we extend the plans by making those goals which require more resources than we presently have, the objects of long-rang plans, toward thing is maintained and DMP is not blocked by the restrictions of inadequacies. We should all have long-range plans because they provide an overall framework from which we can base shorter term plans we can more readily work with. This is most evident in large corporate organizations. The upper management plans for long-term goals which may extend from five to ten years into the future, and the middle management is assigned yearly or monthly goals, this, of course, leaves the lowest ranking employee to deal with the details and simple preparations of the plan under the supervision of the coordinating staff, who ensure the proper feedback to the overseers. Long-range plans will naturally affect short-range plans, but many short-rang plans we make daily can also give thrust to the lon-range as goals come from our motivational system. If we are habitually shortsighted, then the habit will influence goals we select in longer term planning. MAKING MODELS Plans are models, symbolic representations of the synthetic future. It is from plans and their side effects that the synthetic future is generated. With plan, we are able to simulate, through prototype measures, the thing that can be caused to happen. Thus, we find that in plans there will be models, blueprints, designs, drawings, blackboard work, committees, brainstorm sessions, tests, lab experiments, etc... All of the techniques are to prototype the whole operation so as to see ahead its success potential. All these measures make a symbolic work of the actual plan begins. Miniaturation of the actual is a way of previewing the effectiveness of the plan. It is also a way of graphically representing the thoughts that plans are made of, since plans are abstract and difficult to deal with and to interpret in concrete acts and schedules. Oftentimes we fool ourselves into thinking we have thought of everything, but if we make a list in black and white of the thing we intend to do, the mere effort of writing them down approaches the essential of planning. To go ahead without clear and diagrammed exactness is also wasteful. Few of us can do high mathematical problems in our head. We learn to write down the symbols and operations of the problem so that we can free our mind to think of the solution. It is the same with planning: we cannot always think out the ways and means to accomplish our goals, so, like the mathematician, we prototype them in modeled and miniature form so that we free our thought to make the most efficient approach toward our goal actualization. Good plans are easy to understand or they are not good plans. Good plans make thing understandable, which might be misunderstood were it not for the planning efforts. a fine test of this is whether or not the plan communicates its essentials to all those it concerns. Without clear communication we work at cross purposes, traveling in several directions at once, and our eventual goals may never be realized. Two persons seldom imagine and unreal thing in the same way. This is not to imply that to merely tell another person a plan makes it viable. If we can communicate clearly even if it is only ourselves, we lay out a means to and end this is in harmony with fact and laws. COMMITMENT STARTS THE ACTION All plans are no more that abstractions until they are performed. Good plans come from commitment. Commitment answers the question "What do you intend to do?" Commitment requires sacrifice. We believe if we expend time and energy on a project it seems a waste to break it off, so we become tied to our commitments our of a sense of economy. If the value of our sacrifice is great enough, then the value of the plan becomes greater. If no plans are undertaken, no success can be expected. Whatever our motives, once underway, there is an inertia that carries us on its own. Of course, if our commitment to the plan is feeble the inertia to continue is feeble also. After a recent presidential election, when years of planning resulted in success or in failure, both the winner and the loser may be asked, "What are your plans now?" The man who is on the ball will have a quick answer, but for the loser there is a "letdown" as everyone feels the total commitment to the cause of their party. Great men are always in the process of completing their plans, so if the mans is truly great, one loss is only a momentary setback, a rearrangement of his commitments. Anyone who is at all interested in the future will have some degree of commitment to a plan since all plans have something to do with the future. Most people have a difficult time finding value in the abstract, and the future is seen by many as largely abstract. Value is found in the hardware of everyday reality. tomorrow is a dream that may never come. With this attitude commitment to the future is more difficult and not as enduring. Time also is an abstraction. And the saying that "Time is money" makes it real. Even money is an abstraction sought after by us all. Many are committed to acquire as much of it as they can. The lack of materiality of the future should not be the deciding factor of value for the intelligent person. Learning to find value in non-material things is a sign of maturity and farsightedness that lends itself to progress. We define time as a resource necessary to every plan. One of the first principles in planning is that we have enough time to plan, and to implement our plan. Planning with insufficient time shows improper prochronized events and prediction. While in the first steps of planning, we must predetermine the amount of time necessary to the success of that plan. This is fundamental with the course of complete planning. If we find that there is not time limit, this is a problem in itself, as no sense of motivation is felt. Here, the time limits are assigned and set as is best to make commitment and motivation a contributing factor to the focus of planning activity. When thing are under control, usually the amount of time required to accomplish our plans is within control also. (Note: in preparation, the time is externally set, while in planning it is more internally arranged.) BEING GUIDED BY THE PLAN The operation and mental activity of planning itself is to model and aid the mind toward the outcome of our plans. Extending the mind through the techniques of graphs, black boards, and layouts help to keep clear the minute details that often are required to make a plan effective. Improvisation is not eliminated from planning but it is out a plan and a man working off the top of hi head is marked by the form of preparation to meet the future with timing and focus of effective activity. The two stages of planning are the creative stage and the perfunctory stage. In the creative stage, the operations of the mind are enhanced to their limits. While the perfunctory stage the thought process is subdued, as it will interfere with direct and focused attention. The creative stage works with symbols and the mechanical phase. or perfunctory stage works with action and things of the environment. The synthetic future is therefore approached in two directions--the symbolic and mental side, and the mechanical and material side. If the synthetic future is kept only in the creative stages of planning, it will never become an actuality. This is tied into the principle of commitment. Commitment may be defined as setting direction to our motivations. Our motivations are never absent, but they sometimes work in directions other than conscious wishes. Once the plan is animated by the promise of the end result or the goal is seen as a reward for commitment motivation is the result. Unless we are somehow motivated by planning, the synthetic future is never actualized. Plans must be reduced to record, to reference, and guide activity. This reinforces the elemental consideration that a plan must be communicable. to prevent the plan from becoming cumbersome, it should be simple, quick, and accurate. Planning ahead avoids the problems of making decisions and choices that should have been made beforehand. Planning ahead saves time and energy. Of course, no plan can anticipate perfectly, and individual discretion and improvisation have a definite place. It is distasteful to think that being robots to a big plan destroys the most human thing we are--thinkers--but is is also unthinkable to waste resources and energy by not thinking ahead and getting a clear picture of what we should do before we are overwhelmed by a deluge of unseen complications. We learn to concentrate in order to overcome obstacles or solve problems. We think ahead so we need not think when think all at once, as it were, and acting afterwards is a form of concentration. We concentrate the activity of thinking and we concentrate action to pure reflex. Reflexive action is the best way of concentrating our powers. It is ridiculous to think we can do all things at once. We take turn and focus our action to point where the force is increased enough to penetrate or move the obstacles. Once plans have been followed and the desired results are obtained, then under the same conditions the plan will work again. But in this case, the plan takes on the character of knowledge and/or foreknowledge. STEPS IN PLANNING Planning cannot really be understood as a list of parts. To look at the principle of planning as anything less than a complete whole is to leave out some of the most important dimensions of the activity. However, we can, by separating the "operations," get a digestable portion of the whole. As we become more familiar we can synthesize the parts to get the feel of the total activity. 1.To begin any planning, one should determine the mode with which the future is perceived. This may be from any single mode, but should be of the general overall modes of Futurlogics. Decisions and judgments of variable can be simplified if the mode of perception of the general and specific aspects of the future is know consciously during the mental stage of planning. Define natural base. 2. Goals, objective, missions, and requirements must be defined as well as results, effects, and desires, and these must be reduced to terminology of change mechanics. No plan is effective until specific and single aims are set. Goals must focus the activity and complement the build-up of effects that will cause the goal to be accomplished. We must see clearly where we want to go. The more clearly this is defined. the easier the plan will be developed. 3. Evaluation, appraisal, estimate of the present situation is the logical persuant to step two. After we can clearly see the goal as well as present circumstances, we can then inventory the resources elementary to implementing our plans. 4. Compare, analyze, and study the disparity between the present state and the future stage of the desired or the required. The future state of goals achieved is compared to the present state of goals yet to be achieved. The changes needed to effect the end result of goal achievement will be evident. 5. Will the ad quo occur naturally or will intervention and energy be required to over come obstacles and bring about the desired change at the right time? Resources at hand must be evaluated to determine if they will be sufficient. If they are deficient, external sources must be explored. Our commitment is now determined so that we can direct activity appropriately. 6. Set the time requirements and structuring. Schedules and the sense of time use and passage is essential activity. Planning organizes all the activities relative to the future and puts them into a system. What the concert is to the single musician the activity of planning is to any single activity such as waiting. Waiting activity is the scheduling of time to accomplish the goal. 7. Communicate to all who will participate the requirements to accomplish subgoals. Organize, coordinate all subgoals and overall plans that systematize them into a complete, encompassing plan. some planning begins with many specific plans that are convinced in the main plan organizes them. The other case is that a main plan may be so complex that in order to communicate the minor requirements to the participants, subgoals are generated to guide the subordinate activities of the constituent faction of the implementing staff. 8. Set up a monitoring feedback system to have obstacle and unforeseen events brought to the fore so that a resolution may be effected within time standards. One may set watchful eyes upon any contingency areas so that he will not be caught off guard. 9. Plan the equilibrium or life expectancy of the desired results. Once you have accomplished the goal, how long do you desire that condition to remain? If you desire only to get to the top of the mountain, then as soon as you get there you cn turn around and return, saying that the goal is accomplished. But if you wish to clear a jungle for farming, you may want a permanent condition that makes permanent farming possible, and the constant fight of the encroaching jungle might prove to be an expensive output that prohibits any further argricultural projects. DEALING WITH THE FUTURE THROUGH PLANNING The main thread that runs through all the efforts of planning is ecomomy. We must use tactical considerations to get maximum results from minimum output. The fear often inherent in prospective thinking is lessened through a good plan. The present level of civilization has not come by accident. Much thought and study has gone into making the best use of the available powers. The concept of the "trigger"--the smaller force controlling the larger force--is the key to our present power over our environment. Knowledge of the future enhances our awareness of "triggers" and when to use them for maximum economy. Brute force is necessary, but intelligent use of force is the key to getting the above mentioned "triggering action." Plans set up the planning is eliminating the obstacles which prevent the satisfaction of our needs and desires. Our own strength is often insufficient to overcome or eliminate this opposition to our acquisition of selected goals. The opposite to "triggering" is sampling and attenuation. Here, we have the larger forces to move and guide smaller forces. This is mainly a concept of perception and sense. All the indication and instrumentalation are based upon attenuation and sampling. At the base of perception is intelligence. The laws of intelligence are fundamental ingredients of planning and of activities relative to the future. If we were unable to cause things to happen we would not be able to plan. We would only be able to predict. In our discussion of the synthetic future, we used the hand to illustrate the mind's extenion to material surroundings. We could then say that a person with no hands would not plan, because he could not cause anything to happen. The mind of man would be helpless without the "helping" hand to carry out his plan. Predictition is saying what WILL HAPPEN through observation. Planning tells us what we may CAUSE to happen. As we gain more power to cause things to happen, we will predict less and plan more. The acquisition of power over our environment is steadily increasing. Therefore, we should see an increase in people working under the guide of different levels of planning. To understand the nature of the plan makes understanding the motives and reasons for our behavior easier. The temptations of multinational corporations to ensure the success of their plans by sheer force and market manipulation is significant in light of our discussion of the relationship of power and the intellectual process of prediction. Mind over material things is one thing, but mind over mankind is another. It is historically evident that we have dominated the weak to obtain power. Self-expression is an admirable quest, but if we infringe upon the self-expression of others this turns freedom into slavery. Man shaping man and social engineering, propaganda, political manipulation of the few ruling the many are serious problems that will emerge from the increase of power available to us. Plans with power must be understood so freedom can be preserved. Looking ahead, many have anticipated the increase of our power over the environment. Because of this, many plans are now devised based upon these "ifs." When the power is realized and available for use, then these potential plans become viable. This is a case where prediction makes possible the development of plans in advance of their need, so that the time needed for planning can be assured. The more "ifs" we have to base the future upon, the greater our need to assure that the contingency levels of our plans is minimal. Contingency planning is motivated by the enticement of reward. Power to reduce the "contingency variable" to the "absolutely certain" is the thrust of our quest for power to insure the success of any plan. OBSTACLES AND THE PLANNING ATTITUDE 1. People who are not committed are seen to be free. Planning is synonymous to commitment. We find that there is an identification, therefore, to planning as a lack of freedom. This is an illusion. If we are not committed to the working our of some plan, we are subject to forces that would overwhelm us. Planning uses the powers we have more effectively. Planning. if properly used, is a force in itself. Planning requires thought, and thought is a force. Any means that aids that force is freedom. 2. As with all human behavior, planning is rooted in habit. Overcoming habits of avoidance is one of the first things we must do to improve our innate skills of planning and creativity. 3. When a commitment is made, it always means that there is an inherent sacrifice or limitation. This implies a contest of self-control versus self-indulgence. We all tend to be now oriented and this is how we lose consciousness of the temporal environment by definition. 4. Planning is thinking, and thinking is work. Work is a demand seen as a scarifice rather than an opportunity to exercise our faculties and being. We must be aware that there are always limits and balances in all things. 5. The artificial future is an obstacle, especially when it is wrong, and rooted in strong emotions. Plans based upon the artificial future will mean self-discovery, and this is a difficult thing for most people to face. 6. Planning takes time, and this time of thoughtful preparation is viewed by some as laziness. There is no need to feel guilty taking time to plan, as it will save time in the long run, and the long run will get us the farthest. 7. When one is confronted with a task that is beyond the capacity of simple hard work, one must look for a way to accomplish the goal that will be more effective than just "digging in." The person mus know where to dig, and how long, and with what, etc. Work for work is exercise, but work for profit is success. Success should pilot the ship of all or plans. Planning is not laziness, but effective work potential. DECISION, TIME, AND RESOURCES Decisions come from our awareness of the range and limitation of powers. Knowing what we can and cannot do is the key to making speedy decisions. If the exact nature of our resoursec and powers is always hazy, decisions will be difficult and filled with anxiety. A simple aid to decision making will be to define our capabilities, potential, resources, etc. This kind of inventory must be realistic, or the effect will compound the problems rather than ease them. These same limitations force upon us the requirement to make accurate predictions in enough time to make preparations and plans that will increase our powers. Foreknowledge enables us to use the leverage princeiple in approaching any future event. The sooner we know of some future event, the more time we have to organize and focus the existing forces in order to amplify their effects. All decisions making has a degree of foretelling inherent in the process. Looking at the consequences of possible alternatives can aid in the selection of one course of action over another. Sometimes it requires setting down priorities, so that selection does not mean exclusion of one or the other, but is a matter of taking turns and ordering a schedule as the time approaches. At any rate, without some knowledge of what will be, decisions would be just an act of caprice. We must act with purpose and direction toward goals. We should look at the decision-making process as an opportunity to see what we believe the future to be, what we know it can be. It is during this time that we make our most extensive reaches into the future, and feel, and perceive what it might be. We must be introspective, and discover what DMP is really about. Decisions are always associated with anxiety. Paradoxically, decisions made are always seen as cathartic, a relief. Planning will always involve decisions. The word decision means to "cut" or "cut out" from the whole. Generally speaking, one of two alternatives is to be "cut out" and the remaining to be worked with as the resolution. If we could do all things at once, then the process of deciding would not be necessary. But we cannot do all things at once. In order to do anything at all we select a course of action and work to accomplish it. When we would like to do both, but are conscious of our limits and resources, we must sometimes sacrifice one goal to acquire the other. Commitment means sacrifice. To stick with our commitments is to maintain a direction at the expense of other possibilities or directions. Therefore, to sacrifice an alternative is to commit ourselves to something else. The ancient law of sacrifice was really, in effect, a test of commitment to the Jewish law and covenant. In today's terms, sacrifice concerns time and money. The college student whose tuition is paid is not as dedicated as the student who must pay his own way. The strength of our commitment is described in our willingness to sacrifice or our desire to remain resolute. There are four kinds of decisions. One is a choice between two positives. Another is a choice between two negatives. Third is to choose a negative in preference to a positive, and forth, to choose a positive over a negative. All of these decisions, while not ideally desired, are required of us because of the real nature of the world and our sense of limitations. Often a decision is made only to avoid making another decision. Some persons would rather meet the frustrations of wrong choices than to work the process of decision making and face the humiliation of reality. We should avoid escapism in our decisions, as it leads to more complex decisions later. Make the good decision early will help prevent this type of complication. The earlier we can come to our decisions, the greater the leverage factor of foreknowledge. PLANS MAKE MEN EQUAL To summarize, a man with a plan can head off problems in advance, and this is an advantage over the man who improvises. We literally must plan every activity of our lives. If we do this with a good spirit we can experience great degrees of progress. Plans make leaders. The larges share of improvisation we do should be in our moments of planning, and not in the desperation at the moment of occurance. UNIVERSAL ENGINEERING Planning is the most general form of engineering. All other forms of engineering become mere technical activities. In this age of the specialist, where one studies so much about small aspects of the total environment, and nothing is tied into the larger scope, Futurlogics becomes a handbook of the universal engineer. Planning is the most creative of all future-minded activities and is therefore involved in the motivations and psyche of the human mind in the most imaginative way. All our specialists of today must find their direction with the overall generalist of the future. The problems of unguided specialists inputting into the environment has been aptly described in Alvin Toffler's book, FUTURE SHOCK. We need universal planners. Futurlogics is the best engineering handbook for the futurist who seeks to set aright the chaotic disregard for side effects. THE END
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