Under-Specified, Not Impossible

The future you never dared to wish for.

The Marathons

Another year is almost done.

If you’re reading this, congratulations! You survived the annual corporate endurance ritual. The Q4 sprint. The just-one-more-push-before-the-break dash. The kind of marathon where everyone is going through motions they privately suspect don’t matter — but stopping would look worse.

You crossed the finish line. Slack went quiet.

And then — without so much as a cool-down stretch — you were released directly into the secondary endurance event: the festive season.

This is the part involving kitchens, couches, in-laws, and the enthusiastic consumption of things your doctor explicitly warned you about.

Somewhere between the third helping and the careful avoidance of certain topics (because no one wants to be remembered as the person who ruined the mood), there’s room for something so earnest most of us instinctively avoid it.

Not your goals. Not those New Year’s resolutions you already know you’ll abandon before February. A simpler question: What would you actually wish for?

(And no — “surviving January” doesn’t count.)

Three Wishes, No Loopholes

Imagine — purely hypothetically — that your Secret Santa gift this year wasn’t another novelty mug, but a small, slightly cantankerous genie with very strict union rules: three wishes, no loopholes, no “world peace” unless you can explain what that actually means.

What would you wish for?

A world where disagreement doesn’t require moral bloodsport?

Where institutions remember they work for us?

Where decency isn’t treated as eccentricity?

Where truth doesn’t need a PR team?

Or maybe something smaller. More local. More human.

A workplace where exhaustion isn’t confused with virtue.

A public square where curiosity beats cancelling.

Are these childish dreams?

Or are they simply objectives we’ve never bothered to operationalise?

We’re oddly selective about what we call realistic.

Quarterly targets? Serious business.

KPIs? Management science.

Five-year strategic plans projecting market conditions no one can predict? Entirely rational.

But a society where institutions serve people instead of perpetuating themselves?

Suddenly we’re daydreaming.

In reality, everything that exists at scale began as someone’s under-specified idea. Democracy. Weekends. The radical notion that doctors should wash their hands.

The difference between fantasy and infrastructure is implementation — and enough people who refuse to laugh the idea away.

A better future isn’t imaginary. It’s just under-specified.

The good news: you don’t need a genie. You already have what actually changes things.

The future doesn’t arrive in a poof. It sneaks in through habits. Through standards we tolerate. Through small refusals to go along with what feels wrong — and small commitments to what feels right.

No Magic Required

No miracles required either. Just consistency.

You don't need a grand reinvention — just a series of ordinary choices:

• Language: Choose one place to be precise. Refuse euphemisms that excuse cruelty or blur responsibility.

• Attention: Choose one moment each day to pause before reacting — especially when outrage is being served on a silver platter.

• Standards: Choose one principle you’ll apply universally, even when it costs you something.

• Relationships: Choose one person to listen to properly — not to reply, but to understand.

• Work: Choose one place where you’ll name the obvious thing everyone is pretending not to see.

• Community: Choose one small act of repair — unglamorous, practical, and genuinely helpful.

So if, sometime between dessert and a cheesy movie you swear you won’t cry at, a quiet thought crosses your mind — surely we can do better than this — don’t rush to dismiss it.

That kind of wishful thinking is not naivety.

That’s your inner project manager noticing the gap between the finish line you were given and the one you actually want — and wondering why we treat one as inevitable and the other as fantasy.

Next year will bring another marathon. New sprints. New endurance tests.

But maybe — just maybe — we can start running toward something, not just away from exhaustion.

If this resonates and you’d like a place to explore how these ideas could be put into practice — without pressure or performative noise — you can leave your email in the comments or send me a message. No promises yet. Just a signal of interest.