Remember partying like it was 1999? Yeah, that was ten years ago. Since then you may have been able to hide your collection of Limp Bizkit CDs, stop wearing jean shorts and change your “Rachel” hairstyle (frosted tips for guys), but unfortunately you can’t remove that barbed wire tattoo from around your bicep. Show of hands —who else thought this decade would be dominated by Sisqo and his Thong Song (parts 1-5)? Ok, maybe I’m the only one.
Times flies. In some ways Y2K, boy bands, Bill Clinton and the tech bubble seem so far away. I now nostalgically look back at the stuff we “worried” about at the beginning of this decade and they seem rather insignificant. We lived in the glory of a pre-9/11, pre-housing bubble/burst, pre-Afghanistan, pre-Iraq, pre-$140 oil, pre-financial crisis, pre-reality TV world. We were so much better off. Or were we? In looking back at this decade I can’t help but wonder what future generations will think of the pages we have added to the book of human history during the course of these ten years. Will my grandkids learn about the 2000s as the decade of terrorism and sub-prime loans or will they see it as the dawn of the internet age, the proliferation of accessible and cheap technology, instant global communication and emerging environmental awareness? Although many technological advances such as the internet, email, digital cameras and cell phones were not invented in this decade, they became commonplace. If you’ve ever had a day at the office when the Internet was down or if you’ve ever left home without your cell phone, you’ve become acutely aware of how dependent we have become on these things. These technologies have made it possible for our businesses to operate more efficiently, while simultaneously making us as individuals busier, but sometimes less efficient. If you’ve Facebooked, Twittered, watched YouTube or g-chatted with friends at work, then you know what I mean. I think the thing that stands out most about this past decade is that our world has grown exponentially smaller. Not to get all Thomas Friedman on you, but more than ever our economies, communities, cultures and decisions are intertwined. Increasingly we are bound together by our technology and we have access to unlimited information, for better or worse. Keep this in mind the next time you watch a video of Filipino inmates dancing to Thriller on YouTube.
