"Try to think ten years ahead"
The beginning of the first chapter in the Kyohan reads, "People who can look ahead 100 years into the future are looked on as crazy. People who get stuck in the present get left behind. Those who see ten years into the hence and act on it become successes." These words were stated by Ichizo Kobayashi, the founder of the Hankyu Railroad. Twenty years ago, immediately after the end of the war, I returned to Japan at a time when no one knew what would become of the Japanese people. So when I saw the conditions in Japan I thought that this would never do, that if I did not somehow give some spine to the young Japan could end up in a terrible mess. So for the sake of educating the young, I rounded up some young people, despite getting laughed at, and just kept on saying things like what I'm saying here. The high school students of those days have already become respectable adults. That which created the basis of your gathering here today is the children of those days who were good enough to make my words their own, right? Why not try thinking ten years ahead? Though it may be impossible now, why not hold the hope that you can do it in ten years. Then, why not do it? Myself, at your age I think I was a little worse than you all are now. I was an utterly desperate lone wolf, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The person is now doing and saying all kinds of things like this. So in your cases, you should achieve even better results, if you simply do it with all your heart.
(from a sermon in 1966)
