It's January 1, 2000. The world has just celebrated the greatest
New Year'sEve party in recorded history. Even cultures that follow
different calendars are revelling in the streets. But unlike New Year's
parties past, nobody has waited until December 31 to hit the streets. The
children has bee going full blast since Christmas; the world has been
psyching itself up for this blowout since 1995, when the symptoms of
Millennium Fever were first evident.
For several years religious fanatics and prophets of doom have been
preaching the end of the world. And when you look at the events going on
around you on New Year's Day, 2000--civil war in Russia, student revolts
in the United States, the threat of nuclear terrorism--there's good
reason for fear. But Armageddon hasn't happened. The world hasn't gone up
in flames.
In fact, there's a strange elation threading through the chaos and
disruption. Though the United States and the rest of the world will be
going through increasingly troubled times in the immediate future, the
first signs of the scientific, artistic, and spiritual renaissance that
will shape this new millennium are unmistakable. Those who anticipate and
act on the changes taking place will be able to prosper both materially
and spiritually. Here are a few trends that will dramatically alter our
lives in the coming millennium.
Living the Simple Life
Voluntary simplicity, once merely a counterculture ideal, will
finally become a reality in the twenty-first century. Simplicity doesn't
mean deprivation. Rather, it's old-fashioned Yankee frugality,
rediscovered and redesigned for the modern age. Moderation,
self-discipline, and spiritual growth will be the personal goals of the
future, not material accumulation. As the old saying goes: Use it up,
wear it out, make it do, do without. If you don't really need it, it's a
luxury. Not that there's anything wrong with luxuries; it's just that we
won't confuse them with necessities.
In the 1960s, these ideas and goals seemed quaint and cute. In the
new century, however, as cost-cutting corporations continue to lay off
vast numbers of workers, many people will have to drastically scale back
their lifestyles to survive. Call it involuntary simplicity. But
downsizing--currently perceived by the government and the media as a
grave problem, and by the downsized as a catastrophe--will prove to be a
blessing in disguise in the new millennium. Forced into freedom, millions
of us will find ways to take control of our lives and do what we've
always wanted to do: change careers, start companies of our own, or
become work-at-home freelancers. In 1996, 12 percent of downsized workers
started their own businesses, double the rate of 1993.
One major outgrowth of the voluntary simplicity movement will be
our desire to grow as much of our own food as possible. But how many
people will be able to do this when relatively few Americans live in
rural areas where there's room for the type of extensive garden needed to
produce a substantial portion of the year's food?
Somewhere around the year 2000, the revelation--and
revolution--will come. The lawn! Lawns are everywhere: millions of
costly, intensively cared for suburban lawns have been doing nothing but
growing grass. But a lawn that's turned into a vegetable patch can
produce fresh food.
The trend to convert lawns into gardens will have a significant
impact not only on the way we eat but also on how we live and feel. It
will be one of the keys to living better for less. Billions of dollars
formerly spent on lawn care will either be saved or re-deployed into
producing fresh food. The American lawn won't disappear entirely, of
course. Kids will always romp on them, barbecues will still be held on
them. But a significant portion of the nation's arable lawn will be
revamped for food production. Just two mature standard fruit trees
produce 250 pounds of fruit a year. With millions of downsized or
underemployed people struggling to make ends meet, a thousand saved here
and a thousand saved there will make a real difference. Even university
and corporate campus lawns will be transformed into edible landscapes,
providing students and employees with practical, enjoyable, and
therapeutic respite from study or work.
Millennium Family Values
Practicing voluntary simplicity, of course, will require a
redistribution of our priorities, a rethinking of how we spend our days.
Most of us will no longer make the false distinction we used to between
"quality" time and the rest of the day All time will be quality time
(except for filling out tax forms and that sort of thing). After all, it
takes time to cook a good meal, to play with the kids, to sew a ripped
skirt that you once would have thrown away
With more of us working and spending our free time at home, it's
easy to imagine the model twenty-first-century family as Ozzie and
Harriet with laptops. But the Nelson family and their real-life
counterparts were the products of the 1950s, a time when unparalleled
American prosperity allowed the traditional extended family to fragment.
In the new millennium, the multigenerational extended family will come
together.
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