Daily Inspiration: “A child born on this day will have the opportunity to witness the arrival of the wonders of the 22nd century!”

“A child born on this day will have the opportunity to witness the arrival of the wonders of the 22nd century!” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Apparently, George Jetson arrived on this planet yesterday. Twitter was abuzz with this information, and given that I’ve spent so much time on stage talking about The Jetsons, countless people were letting me know.

And so while today is a holiday, I felt compelled to do a post!

Of course, his birthday of July 31, 2022, is all a bit of fun conjecture, based on facts of nothingness. Even so, it does provide for some useful thinking as to how much our world might now change as he goes through his infancy, into his teenage years, and then grows as a man,

Think about this – over the next few years, we’ll witness some of the very same trends that George Jetson will encounter. And yet, he will see even more, as he (and others born around this time) will (hopefully) live well into the 22nd century. (I’d be 141 in the year 2100. I don’t think I’ll make it – that seems a bit of a stretch!)

So can you imagine what the world of 2100 might look like? Maybe not? How about the year 2062 – the year the Jetsons’ TV show was set in?  The writers of the TV series tried to imagine a future 100 years out from the date of the show, which was first shown on TV in 1962. They did a great job in imaging fantastic concepts for the future, but the timing was a bit off. I’ve been using that concept on stage for many years as a way of emphasizing the key point that ‘the future is coming at us faster than we think!’

After all, if you go through the show, much of what they predicted is already a part of our life today – I guess they didn’t expect the future to happen so quickly. And yet, there are also warning signs – what we do right now has a good chance to destroy the world that the Jetsons might find themselves in. I allude to both these issues while on stage.

Now cast your mind out to the arrival of the 22nd century, and try to predict what we might see. I find it hard to do so, given that the pace of change is accelerating so quickly. We will probably see advances in science, technology, society, and more that we can barely begin to comprehend. I filmed this short story for my series, 19 Trends for 2019 – and featured this as trend #20. (After all, Spinal Tap had an amp that went to 11!)

There is no doubt these children will live in a fascinating, wonderful world if *we* do the right things. A child alive today? What types of travels might he have in the future? Will she actually go to space? Will she be able to time travel? Will he have virtual reality travels that are incomprehensible today?

The simple fact is – there is a child alive today who will do the amazing science fiction like things that we find unimaginable – and yet which they find routine!