How far into the future can you plan?

“If your plan is for a year, plant rice; if your plan is for 10 years, plant trees; if your plan is for 100 years, educate children,” Guan Zhang. The quote above is attributed to two Chinese philosophers, Guan and Confucius. The spirit of the quote is that your actions are determined by how far into the future you are planning (also known as your horizon). If your horizon is for one year, then of course you will plant rice. If your horizon is for 10 to 20 years, then you will consider planting trees. 

If your horizon is for 100 years, then it makes so much sense to invest in the next generation. The question to you is, how far is your horizon? For many people, their horizon does not exceed a month. And whereas I use examples of rice and beans, these seeds could be other aspects of life. Allow me to give an example. It takes someone with a long horizon to buy land in a remote village 100kms from civilisation. 

It is likely that that land will not be convenient or profitable for the next 20 years. Imagine no water, no road and no electricity. But for someone with a long horizon, 20 years is not a very long period. As you can imagine, our friend who bought land 100kms away might end up being a pauper today but a billionaire in 20 years when he partitions that land and sells it off.

When given a choice to be broke for the next 20 years and then become a billionaire for the rest of their life or be a survivor (not broke and not rich) for the rest of their life, many people choose to be survivors. But why is this? For many of us, the idea of long-term planning is not natural. It is not inside us, especially if you have grown up in a low-income country. This could be attributed to historical, contextual and socio-economical traits. First, for hunting and gathering communities, life was very risky and life spans were very short. 

A lion could eat you any day, so long-term planning did not make much sense. Second, there was very little available, people mostly got food that was sufficient for the day’s needs mele yalelo (loosely translated as working for the day’s meal). Third, the temptation of short-term gratification is too strong to resist. This was illustrated in the famous Marshmallow experiment. 

In the late 1960s to 1970, Walter Mischel, a Standford psychologist conducted the famous Marshmallow experiment. In that experiment, Walter collected four-year-old children in a room with cameras. He would put a sweet on a table and give them two options; you can eat the sweet or wait for him to return and give you two sweets instead of one. He would then move out for about 15 minutes. 

If he found the sweet on the table by the time he returned, he would give them two sweets. You can imagine what happened when he went out, the majority ate the sweet. Some painfully wrestled with the temptation and eventually gave up. If you have a moment, go watch some of these videos; you can see the pain in the eyes of these children as they fight off the temptation to eat the sweet. 

Some can be seen smelling the sweet to kill off the temptation, others simply close their eyes and others distract themselves with singing and other activities. Walter followed up these children for more than 20 years. And the results were shocking. He found that those who had resisted the temptation to eat the sweet had better academic, marital and life success. 

Walter was accessing delayed gratification. Which is closely linked to the idea of long-term planning. You see, if you plant seeds that will only produce fruit in 20 years, the opportunity cost is short-term gratification and rewards. But like those children who resisted eating the sweet, you will eventually have long-term success. 

Today, I want to inspire us, to change our horizon. Instead of planning for this year, can we dare plan for the next 15, 20 or even 30 years? Uganda has adopted Vision 2040, but do you have your own Vision 2040, Vision 2050 and Vision 2060?

The author is a medical doctor and associate professor at Busitema University. [email protected]