The Best Is Yet to Come

As I travel the world for business and leisure, I’ve made it a point at water coolers and at dinner tables to ask this question of my colleagues: “Where will the human race be in 10,000 years from today?”

I must have asked this question of at least 500 people over the past decade.

A surprising number of people are pessimistic. Almost two-thirds say some variation of:

• Humans will be extinct by then;
• Earth will be uninhabitable either because of ecological disaster or nuclear annihilation; or
• The human population will be tiny and will shun technology. This type of pessimism is especially rampant among the young.

Pessimism has always been more fashionable than optimism. It sounds more intellectual and more sophisticated.

And yet history teaches us that despite our many follies and foibles, the arc of human civilisation bends towards progress.

By all means be an activist and fight for reforms you believe in – but we all have a duty to maintain an optimistic vision of our future as a species and as a planet.

Beliefs are self-fulfilling.

We are getting better. The best is yet to come.