What will hindsight be in 2020?

I look at my young children today and I look at what we are facing in the world today as well; terrorism spread world wide, border problems in the south, Europe slowly dying away, etc. I will sometimes think to myself 'is this going to be end of the world or the end of anything good ever happening to this country again?'

At this point I like to sit back and try to drop my hysterical perspective and attempt to get an historical perspective. I was born in the very tumultuous year of 1968. There were protests in the streets over the war in Vietnam. There was rioting in the south for civil rights. TWO prominent figures, including a presidential candidate were assassinated. There were riots in Washington DC. There were more riots at the Democratic National Convention. Those who were adults then were probably saying the same thing - what kind of world are the children born today going to see? Well hindsight showed us that that 1980's and 1990's were not a bad time to live in.

Let's look back even further to a more tumultuous time. How about the 1940's? The world was at war! Food and fuel and other things were being rationed at home. America was fighting a war on 3 fronts. My parents were born in 1942. What did the adults think then of the children born in those years? Did they ask the same question; 'what kind of world will these children see?' Well the 1950s were a nice decade from what I have heard and read...

We could probably go back generation after generation when the world seemed like it was "really" going to end and the children were believed to have a bleak future, but these prophecies never came to fruition. The truth is that the youth are going to want to have a full life. They don't want the world to end because they want a full life. The ones waxing on about the kids born today not having a nice world to grow up in have no idea what the future actually holds. Nor do they know what the 2010's will be like.... we will have to wait for hindsight in 2020 for that.