A couple of years ago, JRF’s Emerging Futures team introduced me to the concept of the “Three Horizons” as a way of thinking about social change. The first horizon denotes trying to make the system we currently have work better. The third horizon is about imagining a completely different system. The second horizon is the bit in the middle, the bit nobody quite seems to be able to define.

Almost everyone seems to identify strongly with either Horizon One or Horizon Three. They are hard-nosed pragmatists dealing with the world as it really is, or they are visionary idealists dreaming about the world they want to see. Nobody seems to identify with Horizon Two. But it turns out that I am that person.

Because here’s the thing. Horizon One and Horizon Three are both just ideas. The world we have right now is changing all the time, and is never as stable or as solid as we think it is. And there’s no magic point in the future where that process ends, where we’ve arrived at our destination. The messy middle of Horizon Two is the only reality.

I think this realisation can be tremendously liberating. It means we can let go of requiring ourselves or our solutions to be perfect. They don’t have to be perfect: in fact, they never can be. They just have to take us somewhere new.

Perhaps this is also what Erik Olin Wright meant when he wrote in Envisioning Real Utopias that “our real task is to try to think of institutions which themselves are capable of dynamic change, of responding to the needs of the people and evolving accordingly, rather than of institutions which are so perfect that they need no further change.”

As I learned from watching Kate Raworth’s explainer video, Horizon Two is also the inflection point. It’s where we get to make a choice: do we keep on repeating the same old patterns, or do we move forward into something new?

Raworth defines Horizon Two solutions as those which have the potential to be radically transformative, but also have the potential to be co-opted back into the status quo. This makes me think of André Gorz’s notion of “non-reformist reforms” – things which are possible in the here and now, but contain the seeds of a more revolutionary transformation. Maybe they disrupt existing power relations, or embody new values and ideals.

I think Horizon Two is where the action is. There is nothing wrong with having goals or visions for the future, in life or in politics. Without a clear sense of where we’re going, as Keir Starmer’s government has amply demonstrated, we can end up going round in ever decreasing circles. Having a sense of where our third horizon might be can help us to point our feet in the right direction, and to discern what might help us move forward.

But at a certain point, we have to tear our gaze from the horizon – any horizon. We have to let go of the concept of chasing goals and focus on taking the next step. Indeed, as long covid has taught me the hard way, the next step is in reality the only step we can ever take.