- My iPhone takes better studio portraits than professional studios
- I was hungry but my Uber driver had snacks
- Did you see the drone firework display in Shanghai?
- According to my watch/Fitbit, I took 8,912 steps today
- I’ll pay for that by tapping my phone
- It’s included in the magazine subscriptions on my iPad
- Let’s binge watching Season 22 of the Simpsons
- I feel like instantly listening to every hit from 1992
- I swiped right and now we’re married
- Hey Siri, remind me to take out the trash at 1pm?
- It’s one of the most popular bag designs on Kickstarter
- I’ll get someone to design that on Fiver or Upwork
- I love that influencer’s selfies on insta
- Hey Google, is it a catastrophic fire day in Adelaide?
- It’s fake news
- We’ve got a Whatsapp group, but I’ll Snap you
- Elon Musk reckons his re-usable rockets, Cybertruck and Hyperloop will help us colonize Mars
- Did you see a doctor went to jail for gene editing babies?
- I’ll have a Beyond Burger please, and a pizza with plant-based pepperoni
What the hell are you talking about? And this is just a fraction of the global fizzle-pop martini that has shaken and stirred over the past ten years. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens wrote that timeless line in 1859. There is always political, cultural and economic turbulence, although this decade frequent environmental disasters joined the party. Unprecedented droughts (South Africa, Argentina, Australia), floods (India, Louisiana, Oklahoma), hurricanes (Bahamas, Puerto Rico), storms (Superstorm Sandy, Tropical Irene), heatwaves, wildfires (Australia, California, BC), the melting Arctic, city-sized icebergs breaking off Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula. And facing this global challenge are a bunch of world leaders not too removed from comic book villains.
Whatever happens in the year and decade to come, may the weather prove fair and your health fairer. May our challenges be met and our smiles frequent. I hope we continue to appreciate the incredible benefits of our privilege, and empathize with those who want nothing more than to share a piece of it. Every year that passes is a year we won’t get back. Regardless of what we might be telling ourselves in 2030, let’s continue to make them count.