The Picture of Tomorrow

When you begin a career, you don’t carry a forty-year map. You enter like a traveler stepping into a vast forest with no compass, only the thrill of discovery. The first days are filled with nervous laughter, borrowed dreams, and the sound of doors opening that you didn’t even know existed. And yet, curiously, when we plan a vacation, we map every inch. We mark the stopovers, the meals, the souvenirs. Perhaps it is because we know we will return. A career, however, has no return ticket. Once you begin, the starting point dissolves into the mist, and the river flows forward, never showing you its source again.

For me, there was always the habit of sketching tomorrow. At first, it was innocent—drawing the picture of the next day, as if life were a notebook margin waiting for doodles. Then, as time passed, the sketches grew into weeks, months, even decades. When I built my first design lab, those sketches were full of bold colors—products no one had dared to dream, ideas rushing ahead of their time. Later, when I stepped into the corporate world, the sketches became larger murals, painted with teams, scale, and the responsibilities of leadership. Then, as I began mentoring startups and ventures, the sketches shifted again, this time into guiding others to draw their own pictures of tomorrow. Each canvas was different. Some had storms tearing through them, others were gentle landscapes. But all of them were born from the same habit—the playful act of imagining what could be.

Alongside those sketches of tomorrow, I was also sketching myself. I was particularly interested in how I dressed up for work, social functions, and rituals. I even had colour schemes for the day of the week. There was something about aligning the outer hues with the inner mood, as though life itself could be orchestrated with a palette. Now, I find myself shedding all colours and embracing white. Perhaps this too is a picture in its own way. Maybe there’s something in the way we see things that makes us what we are. Maybe there’s no other reason.

Life, however, has its own way of whispering wisdom. Over time, I discovered that five years was the best window. One year felt too short—a blink. Ten years too long—a blur. But five years? That was just enough for seeds to sprout, for dreams to be tested, for reality to either bless or challenge your plans. In those five-year windows, I watched myself transform: once a dreamer, once a builder, once a leader, once a guide. Each cycle brought not just achievements, but also silences, pauses, and the subtle growth of the soul.

Now, looking back across more than four decades, I notice how the beginning has faded. The nervousness of my first day, the cheap pen I carried, the handshake that trembled—all of it has become mist. Perhaps this is the nature of life: to make us forget the starting point so we may keep walking. The river does not ask the ocean to remember its first drop of rain. It only asks to keep flowing.

Today, when I try to draw the picture of even a single year ahead, the brush hesitates. The canvas seems foggy. Does it mean there is no longer a need to plan? Or is it a deeper invitation—to live without sketches, to embrace life as it comes, unmeasured, unframed? It feels as though the act of planning itself has matured into something else. Once, plans were blueprints. Now, they are more like prayers—silent offerings to the unknown.

I realize that after forty years, perhaps the final truth is this: the picture of tomorrow is not mine to draw anymore. The colors have already been gathered. The strokes are many—some bold, some broken, some unfinished. The canvas is whole, even if incomplete. It is no longer about painting the future, but about seeing the present as the painting itself. About recognizing that the journey has been the artwork, and that the unseen hand guiding it was always there. Perhaps the deepest lesson is this: the truest picture of tomorrow is not painted—it is revealed, moment by moment, like dawn breaking across a mountain ridge.

And as the thought dissolves into silence, I hear a verse rise, as if whispered by the canvas itself:

The river need not know the sea,
its song is carried endlessly.
The brush need not define the hue,
the sky will open, ever new.

Once robes of colour marked each day,
now white reflects the broader way.
The hues you choose may set your tone,
but light is found when shades are gone.

The hand that sketches fades in time,
yet still the strokes remain sublime.
The picture of tomorrow lies,
not on the page, but in the skies.