Heroes Not Zombies

Most days, most of us are focused on present needs and desires. We are good at knowing when we are hungry, thirsty or tired, and knowing what we’d like to do about that.

If we have children, our horizons are pushed out a bit – when we think about where to live, once we have children (or are considering having children), we think ahead to the next few years of their lives. What are the local schools like? What is there for them to do as they grow older? What kind of environment is this for children to grow up in?

That got me wondering about how many generations ahead we ever think.

Think about life from the perspective of a 25 year old this year, 2014. Let’s assume a reasonable life expectancy of 75 years. So when your horizon is yourself, at 25, you have about 50 years of living to consider, or till about 2064. Many of the decisions you take about how you are going to live now will affect how you will be living over the next 50 years. Now, what if you have children this year, when you are 25? If they have the same life expectancy as you, then they’ll live for the next 75 years, until 2089. You might well consider how the choices you make now may influence the kind of world which they will live in until 2089.

Take another step and think  about them also having children when they are 25 years old, (that would be in 2039) and life expectancy remaining at 75, then those grandchildren will live till 2114….a hundred years from now.

This is starting to get a little shocking, but let’s push it, a not unimaginable distance further and consider your grandchildren’s children. Sticking with the same pattern, your grandchildren’s children will be living in the world of 2139, and their children to the year 2164.

Yikes! Your grandchildren’s grandchildren will live in the world of 2164 (if you are 25 this year and having your first child).

That’s a hundred and fifty years from now.

Between 1850 and 2000 the world population increased from about 1 billion, to 7 billion people. The growth rate is not even – it’s exponential. In that same period we have consumed probably about 80% of the world’s non-renewable resources, and that consumption is increasing exponentially too.

What kind of world will your grandchildren’s grandchildren be living in?

Does thinking about these increasingly distant family horizons influence any of the choices you might make this year?