2010 – Ten Years Into The New Millennium

We are coming to the end of the first decade in a new millennium. Once, not too long ago, the 21st century seemed like some sort of futuristic science fiction story. Now we’re ten years down and have only 90 to go in this century.

There were threats of millennium bugs that were going to close down our computer systems, and everything associated with them if it had it’s way. Then we woke up on 1 January 2000 and life was still as we’d known it. And has continued so ever since.

Much has happened in the last ten years, but as I’m not a political expert, nor historian, I’ll leave those commentaries to others. Personally neither history nor politics has left its mark on my life in the last decade.

Children born in 2000 are nearly ten years old. Here in New Zealand, the babies I remember being born in that first millennium year, started primary school in 2005 and will be in Year 6 in 2010, their last year of primary school, before they move on to what we call Intermediate school. Growing up, starting school and learning new skills, they will have faced many personal changes. But what about the rest of us?

On reflection, I too have learned new skills and faced many changes. I was almost computer illiterate in the year 2000. I did not own a cell phone. I had never competed in a triathlon and my writing life had not begun. Professionally, I was in an educational management position, with little time for or interest in having a personal life. I lived in Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand.

About the time the millennium babies started school and started a new stage of their life, my husband and I decided to downsize. We moved away from the capital, to a smaller city, the one I had grown up in. We cut back our working hours, and started a small home-based business. So, as the millennium babies were learning new skills, so were we.

It is important to continue learning throughout our lives, not stagnating, but always moving forward. Ten years, a whole decade, have passed in the 21st century. Are we keeping up with our changing society, or have we allowed ourselves to stagnate? Are we remaining open to change?

We often hear the comment, the only things that are certain in our lives are change and death. Before the second arrives, let’s make sure we embrace the first. Look forward to the change ahead, incorporate it into your life in a positive way, and make 2010 the best year you’ve had yet.