By Tabitha Bozeman
We are living in the future, friends. It is hard to believe the New Year is upon us already, but even harder to believe that New Year is 2025. We’ve all heard the “we were promised flying cars” jokes — I think about The Jetsons episodes I loved watching as a kid every time I hear that. But, when I stop and think about the world that existed before I was in high school, versus the world we are living in now, it is pretty mind-blowing.
I remember a world before cell phones and laptops. I remember a world before microwaves and back up cameras. And sometimes I agree with those who lament the changes that have resulted from these inventions. But, more often I am just in awe over the things many of us never dreamed of existing that we don’t bat an eyelash over now.
Take, for the most obvious example, cell phones. I remember when I was about 15 and my grandmother had just bought a brand-new “car phone”. It was huge, heavy, had multiple cords, plugged into the cigarette lighter and came in a bulky bag. I think it must have also cost about $100/minute to use. It was absolutely only for emergencies. When I think about that monstrosity compared to the sleek computer I use to make calls now, and about the fact that I know close to zero people who still have “landlines”, I feel close to the Jetsons’ world.
My car is another “I’m living in the future” part of life. I remember my parents driving cars without power steering. I remember a push button starter on the floorboard of an old truck, vehicles without seat belts, station wagons with rear-facing, restraint-free seats. I remember having to turn and look over my shoulder to back up. Now, sensors tell me exactly which kid has unbuckled before the car is in park, if someone is beside me before I change lanes, how close I am to crossing the stripes, if there is space to back up and more. There are driverless cars wreaking all kinds of havoc across the country in testing pilots. How far cars have come since my childhood is absolutely mind-blowing.
I talk about preparing for the future with my kids and students a lot. My experiences before cell phones and lane-assist cars are always fun to laugh about in class, but the future is something most of us worry over to some extent. I have settled on a couple of quotes that I share with students and my children frequently. The first is “Luck favors the prepared”. What might seem like luck to someone on the outside viewing your life is more likely just evidence of preparation for the situation. Someone took the time and had the initiative to do the next right thing. A friend lands a new job? They had to prepare with training, education and experience to qualify. A student aces a difficult exam? They prepared by studying in advance. The examples are endless for this one.
Sometimes, though, the next right step is difficult to see through the fog of the unknown. In these situations, I encourage students and my kids and myself to imagine their ideal future. Who do they want to be? What schedule do they want to have? How fulfilling do they envision their career? This is when I often quote Eleanor Roosevelt to them: “I am who I am today because of decisions I made yesterday.”
Imagining who or where you want to be in the future has a way of clearing up ambiguity in the present.
Often, we can’t begin to imagine what the future holds. The joys, the hurts, the sorrows, the gifts that wait for us in the future are unknown. As Khalil Gibran said, “Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.” We cannot begin to know for sure the ups and downs that await us in 2025. But we can imagine the best possible future for ourselves and our loved ones and work toward preparing for it.
As you look to the New Year, it is my hope that you will live your best year yet. That we will each experience, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “tomorrow [as] a new day. You shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day … is too dear with its hopes and invitations to waste a moment on the rotten yesterdays.”
Happy New Year, Reader!
