Thinking Out Loud: What Is Your Image of Your Future?

Learning to Appreciate. A look at appreciative inquiry. Excerpts are taken from, Appreciative Inquiry Handbook (2003) by David Cooperrider, Diana Whitney, and Jacqueline Stravros.

“Organizations are heliotropic in character in the sense that organizational actions have an observable and largely automatic tendency to move in the direction of images of the future.” P. 18

Note: The authors are speaking of organizations. I believe what they are saying can be applied to human beings. I lived in a high rise apartment building in Columbus, Ohio. The population comprised of people from all age demographics. The young people were mostly Ohio State University students. Their image of the future was one of hope and dreams of what they could do with the rest of their life. They were filled with energy. Many of the older people had an image of life that it was over. A friend I knew, I’ll call him Bob was sitting in a chair in the lobby. He hadn’t shaved and looked depressed. I walked over to him and asked him how he was doing. I could tell from our conversation that he had given up. It was apparent in the way he was taking care of himself. Three weeks later Bob was carried out on a stretcher and taken to a mortuary. His image of the future was death; it contrasted with the image of life held by the college-aged students. What image do you want to have for your life one of life or one of death. Appreciative inquiry proposes that holding positive images of the future shape the actions we take to make that image real.