For the last few weeks, I’ve been surrounded by memories. For Mother’s Day, my sister arranged to have some of our old family movies transferred to DVD. We laughed at the fashions and my mother was teary eyed seeing all those who had passed away. Sunday, at a family gathering, I met with my cousin. His business had closed because the print magazine he owned and ran just wasn’t relevant anymore and we were discussing new ways to transfer his marketing skills to a new generation: a generation who had grown up with internet and social media.
We both aren’t from that generation.
For example: Things that I never imagined saying growing up. “Dear Nieces and Nephews; You grandmother has a new Facebook account. Please Friend her so she has stuff to look at.” My high school English teacher would have gone purple had I written that sentence in her class. The word was ‘Befriend’. You didn’t ‘Friend’ and ‘Unfriend’ or ‘Like’ and ‘Unlike’. People, we have entered the Wild West of the English language — again.
If you are reading this and are around 25-years old, you don’t remember a time without the internet. The World Wide Web came on line in 1991. I was already 30. Blogging started becoming popular in 1999. And Facebook is only 13-years old. What I’m trying to say is, you are on the inroads of new technology. Technology that has become so ingrained into your lives that you already take it for granted.
In the 1960s, I attended the World’s Fair when it came to Montreal. I don’t remember much, because I was only about 6. But I do remember seeing these phones at the Pavilion of the Future. You could see who you were talking to. They were on a television screen, live, while you were talking to them. (I can hear your eyes rolling from here, by the way.) But you must remember, most TVs still didn’t have color pictures and telephones were still fixed by wires to the wall. There were no answering machines or portable phones and computers were the size of a room. And that was a little over 50-years ago. If I were to write a story about the world I grew up in, it would read like a historical novel. Everything from the creation of this post to sending it to you to read, has changed beyond that English teacher’s recognition.
So, when you think it’s all been done before, it hasn’t. You are the future’s pioneers. You might not be crossing mountains in covered wagons but you are headed into uncharted territory; technologically, spiritually, and financially. For every path you chart, another generation will follow and build the road until its their turn to move forward.
When things look dark, remember you a pioneer. Do what they did.
Be unique! Keep going!! Be brave!