Radio 4 13th January 2008

Copyright is with the BBC

Good morning.
The clamour for instant results and success in contemporary Britain is increasingly loud and equally frustrating. We want success and we want it now.

Economists have been arguing for decades about the negative impact of short term ism on British industry. But it’s not just there. In politics and education the cry for immediate results is constant. And it’s the same in entertainment and sport.

The driving forces of short term ism include greed, inflated expectations and a communications infrastructure geared towards the now rather than the not yet.

The sacking of Sam Allarydice as manager of Newcastle United is a case in point. The complex reasons as to why this marriage made in football heaven ended so quickly, and with such disappointment, continue to be debated. Pope Benedict this week suggested that football encourages the virtues of honesty, solidarity and fraternity – qualities easily identifiable with the Geordie spirit – but they can only flourish in a healthy and realistic context.

Knee jerk thinking or planning is, in many ways, the antithesis of any longer term strategy. In constantly clamouring for immediate results and instant success, there emerges a frustrating sequence of crises and calamities resulting in a deepening sense of failure and a consequent loss of morale. Too many of us live in a world where you’re only as good as your last game or your last deal.

As a priest, I speak to lots of people who tell me the stories of their lives with a kind of detached disregard for the cumulative devastation resulting from the need to deliver –and now! That is not an excuse for bad performance or a lack of effort. I have heard this from dedicated bankers and gifted entertainers; prayerful bishops and enterprising executives; and, when I was a part time football commentator, indeed from football managers.

This kind of pressure to deliver now is the product of human behaviour which is, on the one hand modern and trendy but, on the other, undermining and exasperating. And we so easily join the fickle crowd shouting sack him, fire her, change it, sort it ….or else. Here today. Gone tomorrow.

So what does the priest reply? Of course, that faith is one dynamic way of restoring a greater sense of perspective to the basic notion that life is not just about the here and now; it is more about the permanent and not yet! But, also, as a fellow human being at the start of a new year, I simply suggest that there is much much more to life than the short term – and the sooner we start planning for the longer term outlook – the better it will surely be for all of us!