The 100-Year Spotlight

Recently I have been thinking again about “tomorrow’s today, yesterday’s today.” I coined this phrase more than 20 years ago, but it holds good in any age.

What is “tomorrow’s today”? It means living today for the sake of tomorrow, making moves today on the basis of a strategy for tomorrow. Today did not suddenly happen. It is the result of measures taken in days gone by with a view to tomorrow. In other words, it is the principle of causality.

However much you may understand this way of thinking and viewing theoretically, though, in the end the only way forward will be parallel translation from the past, because only understanding something theoretically is the same as not understanding it at all. You cannot reel in tomorrow from there.

The starting point of “tomorrow’s today” thinking and seeing is human beings. Human beings exist surrounded by various factors, such as the sun, the Earth, and life. There is life and there is death. All things have life and death. Living means existing. Nothingness is a beginning as well, though.

We can understand “being and nothingness” if we think about time. How about when the time from the birth to the death of a human being is viewed from the world of light years? That is a world of nothingness. However, human beings exist because of the chain of time from parents to children.

Human beings exist for 100 years. In this period of 100 years, there is birth and there is death. It is as if a spotlight shines for 100 years. For this reason, we must strictly recognize and understand the existence of human beings.

Without the existence of human beings, nothing would begin and nothing would happen. That is to say, it is only because human beings exist that we have technologies, products, digital devices, and whatever. They tend to be taken for granted, but as I have said over and over again, we certainly must not do so without a proper understanding of human beings.

If industrial circles, companies, and so on are facing a severe situation at the moment, it is because there has only been a continuous chain of yesterdays, in other words, a parallel translation from the past. They did not forecast today a few years ago and take the necessary measures. Prosperity definitely only occurs as the result of steps taken in the past.

If we do not take steps today for the sake of tomorrow, a difficult situation is sure to arise again in a few years’ time. It is only by looking hard at tomorrow that tomorrow will open up and today’s prosperity will be realized. I sincerely hope to rally the industry and ensure good sales by thinking today about tomorrow.