The Future We Create Every Day
I love thinking about the future. Not just the kind where I wonder what I’ll eat for dinner or where I want to travel to next - not that those aren’t fun to think about. But sometimes I let my mind wander to a place and time that will always be unknown to me, a future that exists centuries down the line. How will we live, love and learn? What will we do for work? How will we commute? What will money look like or even mean? How will nations and governments exist? What will religion still mean? What will healthcare become? How long will we live? Will we have colonized space? What would we have learned things about our world, our universe, and ourselves that our minds cannot even begin to comprehend today?
Then I think about some of the more difficult things. How will we protect and uplift our most vulnerable people? What problems created over centuries and millennia will need to be solved? What debt we will leave for future generations to repay?
And then I think about some of the worst ones. What would we have done to our fragile planet by then? What new things would we have found to divide us? What will we still be fighting for? What will we still think is worth killing each other over?
I find myself so fascinated by this future world and it’s future people — people who will walk the same streets I walk on now, live in the cities I have lived in, and read the books I have read. No matter what I’ll have in common with these people, they will still belong to a different reality — a reality that will be significantly different than ours.
I think about this future because I also think about our past and our history. I think about the pioneers who challenged the status quo and dedicated their lives to uncovering scientific truths we all now take for granted, about leaders who fought to bring justice and peace in lands, nations and people divided by myriad differences. I think about the artists and poets who inspired generations to come and will always continue to do so — just because they did what they thought they should. Not all of them set out every day to shape the future, but unbeknownst to a lot of them, they still did.
Yes, most of us may not be these pioneers, leaders and visionaries. Most of us might feel our spheres of influence are too small, our ambitions exceed our talents, or that we do not even have the key to unlock our own futures let alone those of several billion people. I personally feel all of the above but have still started seeing myself as a catalyst, albeit a tiny one, that plays a role in defining a future reality. Any change, big or small, starts with the realization of a responsibility to something that goes beyond just ourselves and our circles of trust that are becoming smaller by the day. Our problems, our ideas, our dreams, our choices, and our actions are never insignificant — we simply cannot predict what they may collectively unlock.
Because not all of us set out every day to shape the future, but unbeknownst to a lot of us, we still will.
