- There will always be disagreements
- We will continually evolve
- There will be wonderful new discoveries
- Those discoveries will create disruption
- No one will ever be all or know all
- While lives will increase in time, they will still be finite as we know them (perhaps infinite in how we religiously believe or what we will come to know)
- We will seek out love, friendship, companionship, and happiness in what we do
- We will seek different paths as we are different from one another
- Institutions will evolve and change
- Leadership will evolve and change
- Knowledge will evolve and change
- Collaboration will be more necessary as populations grow and interdependence dominates
- Resources will be challenged and it will take good thinking and innovation to salvage what we have and seek out new resources in planets and space
- Survival will continue to dominate much of what we do
As I learned of many years ago, I still continue to believe we are evolving towards a greater good as Theihard de Chardin explained many years ago and as Pinker's research recently revealed.
What we hold true today may change, yet our yearning for love, acceptance, and happiness, I believe, will not change.
So as we think about where the world is going, I wonder about whom I want to be with this short life that I live. I guess in general I want to promote the best of what life can be for each and everyone of us. I want people to take their life giving traits and physicality and use it to better their own lives, our world, and the lives of those they love and connect with.
I want young people to grow with intelligence, physical strength and health, and vision for a good future. I want those young people to think carefully about the relationships they have, the pastimes they engage in, and the children they create, love, and nurture.
I want people at the middle and older ages to think about contribution--how can we use what we've learned to help one another and make our world a better place? I want us to be gentle with one another and see life's greatest problems as problems that derive from many origins not a singular source in most or all cases. There are so many ways that we can better this world with our connections, experiential knowledge, and forward thinking/efforts. Yet we have to be gentle with ourselves too as each of us alone is so incomplete and unknowing in light of how immense this world is and how short our lives and limited our relative experience.
As I think about the future, I recognize once again that it's the way we live that matters as the problems, challenges, and opportunities will always exist, but the way we approach those constructs makes a difference for our own lives and the lives we impact and interact with.
Day by day, step by step, action by action, thought by thought we move into and through our lives, and to do that with our best energy, effort, knowledge, and intent makes an important difference. Onward.
