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From the pantomime's and  from the scary movies, it’s always behind you, isn’t it?

In the far north of Scotland there is a large statue on a hill near a town called Golspie.

If you walked to the top of that hill you can walk round the statue itself, you can see that statue for miles and miles around.

Many of the locals whose families have lived there for generations hate that statue and hate the man and the system that it represented.

To them it conjures up images of one of the darkest periods of Scottish history where population was "cleansed", raped and sent into exile so that people like the man in the statue could put sheep on the land and make money to educate their children in England.

We could look back and see that it is behind us and we could pretend using that motivation is a force for good in the future, that inspires us and drives us forwards.

“All endurance athletes are running away from something” – Lance Armstrong.

Perhaps society tells us to do this, to draw from our negative experiences to push us into the future.

I am not sure that nowadays that is the greatest force for good and I am not sure that drawing from horrible experiences from our past or horrible experiences from our ancestor’s past will promote the type of collaboration and work and creativity that we need to make things better today.

Perhaps “its behind you” is better left to horror movies and “what’s in front of you” might be a better way to frame the problem.

Blog Post Number - 2057