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It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

One of the things that has really hit home for me is that the world is how we decide it is going to be. Very few things just happen. They grow out of history, and they grow out of the present, and the more we can get a sense of how our actions lead into other actions in the future, hopefully we'll learn to make better decisions.

People feel they are not participating in the decision-making process. Decisions are exclusive to those at the very top. You have grown up with crony capitalism and it creates ever more resentment.

People feel that decisions about their jobs, the way their children are educated, how their church functions, and products they buy are made by someone and some place so distant that they can't find anybody to talk to that has any influence over them.

People are looking for certainty. The more complex the world becomes, the more people look for people to give them certainty and tell them what to do. During the past few years of actively thinking about this, there is one thing that I have accepted: certainty is not out there. There is not one strategy to follow, and that's OK.

Clearly, the decision-making that we rely on in society is fallible. It's highly fallible, and we should know that.

We increasingly live in societies based on the vocabulary of 'choice' and a denial of reality - a denial of massive inequality, social disparities, the irresponsible concentration of power in relatively few hands, and a growing machinery of social and civil death.

The only realistic view is that a human life arises gradually, which is not much help in making personal decisions or devising public policy.

Sometimes, people aren't as consciously aware of their decisions as they should be.