Tom Asacker

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Are you better off today?

 The first ten years of the new century may go down as the decade to forget.  Terrorists attacks, devastating natural disasters, scary increases in CO₂ emissions, Wall Street scandals and two market crashes. 

The stock market is down 26% since 2000, median household income is also down, and unemployment is up.  The price of oil has more than tripled, health care costs have spiraled out of control and there appears to be no end in sight to corporate bankruptcies and the mass exodus of loyal employees.

But . . . scientists have mapped the human genome, information has been set free with web-based collaborative initiatives and low-cost publishing platforms, vaccines are being developed to prevent cancer, water was found on the moon, Apple launched the iPhone, and the Red Sox captured the World Series for the first time since 1918 (I had to toss that in). 

So, are you better off today than you were ten years ago?

You are if you've been keeping up with the changing environment, while passionately pursuing your calling and working to make a difference in people's lives. 

Will you be better off in 2020?  That's up to you.  Here are a few major trends to consider during the twenty-tens; the decade of unprecedented opportunity:

• The Internet - In 2000, a little more than half of all Americans spent less than 30 minutes a day online.  Today 75% of Americans are online for more than 4 hours each day.
• Cell phones - In 2000, 50% of Americans owned cell phones and sent 5.4 billion text messages.  Today 85% of Americans own cell phones and send over 1 trillion text messages a year.
• Online shopping - 28% of adult Americans purchased a product online in 2000-01.  55% bought something online in 2008-09.
• Social networks - In February 2005, 8% of adults used a social networking site.  In April 2009, 46% used one.
• Television - An average American home could get 61 channels in 2000 and 3.5 million households owned a DVR.  Today it's 130 channels and 31 million households with DVRs.

We are in the midst of radical change, from the way we listen to music and find a date to how we purchase products and consume information.  The average American spends about 70 percent of her waking hours -- 11.8 hours per day -- devouring information.  That's more than triple the amount of information we were reading, viewing or listening to in 1980.  The number of Google searches has grown seven-fold since 2004 to over 7 billion per year.

Real-time and location-based technologies are exploding onto the scene.  Americans are watching tens of billions of online videos each month.  Consumers are much more informed and discerning in their choices of brands and companies.  And we will continue to witness the collapse of institutions and the rise of individual power.

It's an unsettling, yet exhilarating time to be alive.

The scholar and political theorist John Schaar wrote, "The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created -- created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them, changes both the maker and the destination."

Your thoughts and actions today will determine whether or not you'll be better off tomorrow.  Now is the time to sincerely consider what future you hope to create for yourself, your people and your loved ones?

Posted January 5, 2010
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