Reflecting is looking forward

Blog Jules Lejeune: reflecting is looking forward

This year too, the last weeks are placed in the context of looking back. Customers and contractors, employers and employees, teachers and pupils, parents and offspring, in business and personal relations this is the time of year when we take stock, evaluate achieved results and set goals for the coming year.

In fancy terms, these days this is called ‘reflecting’. ‘Reflection’, Wikipedia informs us, ‘is a term from didactics. It is a structured manner of understanding experiences and analysing and giving meaning to them. Reflection is the process where experiences are transformed into meaning.’

Viewed in this way, reflecting works in two ways. We call forth memories, shine the current light on them and allow the reflection of the experiences gained to cast a vison view into the future.

Reflection is therefore a form of looking ahead: one step backwards, two steps forward.

However, these days there are a number of paradoxes which obscure the reflection image.

Time is moving faster and faster, but our time horizon lies further and further away in the ageing and sustainability driven society. Under the influence of globalization, geographical distances are becoming smaller and smaller, and the feeling of alienation is becoming greater and greater. Under the influence of the digital highway, information is becoming more and more accessible, but the distribution of disinformation and fake news via social media makes reality more and more elusive.

Against this background, associations of people in organizations are a beacon of authority, of dialogue, of the adversarial principle, with a view of the future but with a realization of the past, of joint responsibility with an eye for the individual, and they support the realization that there is more in the world than soundbites, framing and self-interest.

Associations, to remain within the terms used by Wikipedia, make it possible to transform collective experiences into a meaningful, joint future.

As Lejeune, we are proud to have been able to make a contribution for more than half a century to a strong collective and look forward to celebrating the Association’s year 2019 with you, on our way to our 55-year anniversary.

On behalf of the staff and management of Lejeune Association Management, I wish you very happy holidays and a successful and reflective 2019!

Jules Lejeune

Managing Director