As an energy researcher, talking about climate change is part of our work. It is a concept that really stuck with me in 2006 after watching An Inconvenient Truth on cable television.
Even after reading The Ministry for the Future, I still find it challenging to imagine what life would look like a year or two from today, much more to imagine the world in 2100.
Ten years into the future feels too far and seemingly less important than the urgency of the now, the latest news, and whatever is trending.
Deep down, I’ve been having unsettling thoughts about how there is something wrong with busying myself only for the moment without deeply considering how my actions and inactions affect not only the next generation but also their children and their children’s children, as far as the seventh generation is concerned.
I am too caught up with the “in-the-moment” concerns and desires that all I think about most of the time is how to make the most of my life before I die, and that’s it.
Present concerns feel like the only thing I should put my focus and resources to, overshadowing long-term thinking.
So, I find it fitting to talk about transgenerational thinking as we start another year.
What is transgenerational thinking?
From How to think like a futurist:
Transgenerational thinking. When we think about doing good in the world, almost all of us think about doing it sometime between our birth and our death. But with transgenerational thinking, you can expand how you think about problems, your role in solving them and the consequences. Here is a personal example. Every once in a while, my wife and I go out to dinner with our kids. We have three children under the age of seven, so it’s never a peaceful, quiet meal. My usual inclination is to resort to a short-term strategy — to go into my pocket, take out my phone, and let them play a game. Putting on the transgenerational thinking cap means asking, “Okay, I can do that, but what is it teaching them?” Instead, I might bring paper with me so we could draw together, or I could try to engage them in conversation. No matter which of these I choose, it won’t be as easy as giving them my smartphone. But it will connect them with me and my wife in the present, and it will also set them up to affect how they may someday interact with their kids. Which could shape what they do with their kids, and so on.
If you have also been noticing yourself incapable of thinking long-term, here’s a talk about how short-termism is killing us by Ari Wallach (which by the way I watched while waiting for New Year’s Eve).