There’s a short video called To Scale: TIME.
It stretches the 13.8 billion years of our universe across a desert… placing lights along the way to show the unfolding of everything that has ever existed.
And then—right at the very end—comes us.
Human civilisation… barely visible.
Your life… almost imperceptible.
It’s not just something you watch.
It’s something you feel.
And when you do… it changes you.
The Part That Took My Breath Away
What struck me first wasn’t how small our presence in the timeline is.
It was the beauty of what has been created.
Billions of years of emergence.
Precision beyond comprehension.
The quiet patience of a universe that didn’t rush.
Everything that exists today—this planet, nature, life, eventually us—
is the result of something extraordinary unfolding over time.
Not chaotic in the way we often think…
but layered, connected, evolving.
There’s something deeply humbling in that.
Because it makes you realise:
We didn’t create this.
We stepped into it.
And for a moment… you feel it.
The magic.
The wonder.
The privilege of being here at all.
Knowing we are all connected at the most fundamental level.
And Then… The Other Side of the Coin
Because once you see that scale—really see it—
another truth becomes impossible to ignore.
In what is essentially a fraction of a second on that timeline…
we have managed to take so much.
Strip resources.
Divide nations.
Destroy environments.
Exploit for gain.
Fight for power and control.
All within a window of time so small… it barely registers.
That’s confronting.
Not because it’s new information—
but because the scale makes it undeniable.
We often talk about progress as if speed equals success.
But when you step back like this… you start to question it.
Progress toward what?
And at what cost?
This Isn’t Just About the Environment. It’s About Leadership.
It would be easy to frame this as an environmental issue.
But that’s not what this is.
This is a leadership issue.
Because the patterns are the same everywhere:
Short-term thinking over long-term responsibility.
Control over care.
Extraction over stewardship.
Systems that prioritise output… over impact.
We see it in governments.
We see it in organisations.
We see it in everyday decisions.
And often… we don’t even realise it’s happening.
We’ve been conditioned by systems to believe we don’t have a choice—or that we can’t make a difference.
We’ve Forgotten What We’re Part Of
Somewhere along the way, we disconnected.
From the scale.
From the responsibility.
From the understanding that we are not separate from this world…
we are part of it.
When that disconnection happens, something shifts.
Decisions—and avoidance—become easier to justify.
Consequences become easier to ignore.
And “normal” quietly drifts into something many of us would never consciously choose.
So What Do We Do With This Information?
That’s the uncomfortable part.
Because once you see it… you can’t unsee it. Even if some try.
But know, this isn’t about carrying the weight of the world.
It’s about awareness.
About pausing long enough to ask:
- How am I using my time?
- What am I contributing to?
- What am I normalising through my decisions?
Remember—you do have a choice… if you choose to use it.
Because leadership—whether we like it or not—shows up in the choices we make every day.
Not just in big moments.
But in the small ones we barely notice.
Two Truths. One Choice.
This video left me sitting with two things at the same time:
Deep awe…
and deep reflection.
The awe of what has been created.
And the reality of how we are choosing to exist within it.
Both are true.
The question is:
What do we do with that awareness?
Because This Moment Matters
Not in the way we often talk about impact.
Not in headlines or grand gestures.
But in something much quieter.
More personal.
More real.
We are part of something extraordinary.
And we have a small window to experience it.
To appreciate it.
To protect it.
To lead differently within it.
If you haven’t seen the video, I encourage you to take a few minutes and watch it.
But don’t just watch it.
Feel it.
Because sometimes…
the perspective we need most is the one that reminds us how little time we actually have—and how much that should change the way we choose to use it.
Risk Rebels — What Say You?
