Majority of the world's population has eyesight (surely you who's reading the blog) but not everyone has a vision; that said, there's more to understand in this regard.
As defined by Google, vision is "the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom" but that's not all that vision is. Vision is like an unexplored territory, so let's explore it bit by bit.
Every one of us is a part of one or the other organisation, which can be at a micro level from a residential society to a macro level like a countrywide NGO or an international organisation like the WHO, which is always led by leaders who have a plan to take the same forward and build that organisation, stronger and larger. That plan or farsightedness is what we term "Vision".
Now as defined the word 'Vision' would sound, it is not. It is a subjective term that is up to the discretion of how the leaders perceive it, which if understood wrongly can have a very severe impact affecting all of us. Vision is something that not everyone has but the people who do, are influencing our daily lives largely. How we communicate, what we use, how we dress up and the places we go, everything was a vision that turned real. Now if that vision was weak for any reason, it wouldn't have brought a positive change.
For example: If Elon Musk did not have the vision to create sustainable electric cars that can save the environment as well as give you the same (or better) comfort while travelling, we wouldn't have experienced the value of Tesla Cars. But when people were joking around his belief, his vision is what gave him a clear path to walk on and turn these laughs and giggles into Wow's!
Hence, as I understand, "Vision is the ability to foresee a better future, which is so strong that it enables you to walk on a path so unclear, that while walking on it and discovering it, you end up bringing a radical change in the universe". It is really important for every one of us to have a vision for ourselves and our surroundings so that we know how to play the game of life but this isn't easy. For that, I've listed down a couple of things we can do to build a vision for ourselves:
Talking to your own and understanding yourself and your calling. This essentially means, knowing about things that excite you the most and you have an idea to develop them.
Exposing yourself to understand the different kinds of people, cultures, and learnings would teach you how one is affected by others' actions (positively).
Being a problem solver or trying to build better solutions that can help people transition into the future. (This might sound business-oriented, but it's not confined to anything)
Building the capacity in yourself to strive for what you believe in. Building the capacity to take tantrums, failures, disturbances and mainly sacrificing things you always wanted to bring the change that you believe in.
As we tried to explore the unexplored territory named 'Vision', it is also important for us to understand one's vision to make the right decision. One of the most important subsets includes understanding the leaders you follow and analysing if their vision is right, if so, you're at the right space, if not, you might have to rethink. This can be understood by breaking down what vision is. A vision is always clear and a long term one, if you or any leader has a vision that is unclear or is short-termed, that according to me cannot be a vision.
I would like to present a short piece on one of my personal experience here. In my college, I see students running organisations (like Debating Clubs, Literary Society, etc.) and when asked about what's their vision for the organisation, they start telling me about different events that they plan to conduct and how differently they will organise themselves, which according to me is wrong and short termed. On the other hand, a friend of mine who was recently appointed the Head of the Student Body said that his vision is to make this college the nurturing ground for future leaders to learn and grow. Once you start breaking down this vision, it has a lot of courses to be set right but is something that stays the same forever, which makes him a true visionary and that my dear friends is what I term 'Vision', a clear, strong and a long term strength, that everyone would be interested to build and contribute towards. Vision thusly comes from analysing the people who make decisions for us and questioning everything in that regard for creating a better future.
Lastly, I would want to mention that I admire 'Steve Jobs' and whenever I think of vision, I think of him. Steve Jobs' vision for Apple was “Building tools that amplify a human ability”. These tools are what we call iPhone, iPad, Mac and so many more devices, but those tools were an enabler to the vision of Steve Jobs for Apple and the reason why no other technology company is able to beat Apple is because of its strong foundations laid in their vision, which summarises the importance of vision.
Until next time!