How will we live tomorrow?

“I don’t know if I’m going to make it ’til the end of today. 

“We are supposed to be this global village, but the more technology we have, the less we communicate. We are less empathetic when we need more understanding.” 

Joe Gaken, Theater Maven, East Boston, MA

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How will we live tomorrow?

Hopeful.

Elizabeth Goss, Immigration Attorney, Boston, MA

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How will we live tomorrow?

When I look at the world I am pessimistic. But when I look at people, I am optimistic.

Elyssa Nadler, quoting Carl Roger, Yoga Tecaher, Boston, MA

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How will we live tomorrow?

We will place a greater importance on friendships and, as a society. I hope we will deepen our friendships with each other. 

Camilla Brooks, Psychotherapist, New York, NY

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How will we live tomorrow?

We will keep facing challenges and meeting them; with a lot of effort, pain and sacrifices before success. We are at a time of stunning change in our material lives, but the real challenges are faced in our inner world. We are awakening to that. We are opening up more and setting new moral frontiers, new understanding, new acceptance; while enjoying the fascination of exciting technology, travel, new horizons. Some are concerned that technology may solve all our problems and deprive us of jobs and the opportunity to dignified living. But all that progress will be just the origin of new frontiers, to be met with toil and dedication. I don’t see us running out of opportunities for constructing better, more fulfilling lives any time soon. I look forward to the future.

Costas Boussios; Immigrant, Engineer, Entrepreneur; Cambridge, MA

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How will we live tomorrow?

By being present and aware today. If you persist in the moment today, you can flourish tomorrow.

Louie DePasquale, Yoga & Life Lover, Medford, MA

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How will we live tomorrow?

To answer this question, I will imagine myself author and future life designer. Starting from the globe, I hope people live in peace without borders, war, or famine. The world will believe in coexistence, accepting differences and equality. I hope governments will invest more on improving living conditions and protecting the environment.

As an Arab, I dream that Arab countries will create one big country. They have the same language, culture, religion, and natural resources…they need just to be united.

Tomorrow is the result of today, so we need to react now for a better tomorrow. We need to believe in ourselves, be optimistic and passionate. These are the keys of success and a better world.

Rida Elarrasse, Moroccan Immigrant, Revere, MA

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How Will We Live Tomorrow?

I feel like so many things are changing so fast that it’s really hard to say how we will live tomorrow, but it’s extremely exciting and interesting times to be living in for sure.  Everything from people becoming more comfortable in a sharing economy (with things like Uber, AirB&B), the rise of crowdfunding and how that’s changed how people can create their own businesses and projects, that combined with a giant shift in the entertainment world where people on youtube can be more influential than giant pop stars and people are experiencing entertainment in ways that have never existed before (with tablets, VR, AR, and all sorts of other things).  While there is so much interesting and good things happening in the world at the same time there are still some pretty terrible things too, poverty, war, inequality and so much more.  Also with the rapid increase in processing power we’ve been experiencing unfortunately there are new ways people can divide, track and overall hurt each other in so many ways too.

Will Brierly, Snowrunner Productions, Cambridge, MA

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How will we live tomorrow?

I have been fascinated by your invitation and started writing a response several times, though stopped on each occasion as I wasn’t sure I could effectively choose a topic that would be well researched enough to qualify. I kept asking myself, whether I should write about moving to a healthier lifestyle (which I have done by moving to the remote West Coast of Oregon and producing most of our vegetables year round organically).  Or perhaps I would write about how we should move as a society to a more equitable and effective medical care system that doesn’t leave those with fewer resources out in the cold.  Or perhaps I would write about taking steps as a society to end some of the social and physical diseases that more and more undermine our ability to function – such as obesity/diabetes, mental health, addictions, HIV – all of which could be meaningfully effected if we as a society spent even a portion of the money that we spend on truly meaningless self-indulgences. 

Among the greatest self-indulgences I see is the increasing waste of money on politics.  I spent that last 4 years of my career as the chief ethics officer of a large public company, where one of my most important jobs was trying to prevent the corporation through, training, systems and monitoring, from engaging in bribery of foreign public officials. Yet I see in our own society that the use of money in politics in the US is often not very different to how corporations try to use it in foreign countries to obtain advantage in the marketplace.  As I have been watching the news reporting about the Clinton Foundation unfold, I have to wonder on one hand if this is a well-funded attempt by the Koch brothers to knock Hillary out of the race before she begins.  On the other hand, the issues it raises about Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Jeb Bush and most if not all prominent current politicians are very serious and speak to the undermining of our very democracy and the rise of mainstream political unrest, due at least in part to a general feeling that our government is no longer of the people for the people.

So how will we live tomorrow?  I wish I knew the answer, but for myself, a move to a place where I could be more at one with nature, grow my own vegetables and spend the rest of my life working with a few select non profits furthering some of the issues around bringing better health to those who are underserved in my area, is the way I will live tomorrow.

Paul Hempel; Retired Exec, Husband, and Humanist; Port Orford, OR

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