Where Do You See Yourself in 10 Years?

I was travelling back home today and after working my way through the "heightened" security measures at the airport I passed by the news stand and came across a number of magazines with retrospective articles on the Decade with No Name (the zero's? the aughts? the double oo's? We've had ten years to figure this out people, come on). It occurred to me that in 2000 that I had job, a house, and a new girlfriend, and now 10 years later I have a different job, a different house, and a different new girlfriend. I could not have imagined 10 years ago that any of those things would be different. I think if someone had asked me in 2000 "where do you see yourself in 10 years?" my answer would have been a lot different from how things actually turned out.

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that there would be "heightened security measures" at the airport.

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that I would have a bunch of new stamps on my passport and that a couple of them would be from Indonesia.

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that jet planes would bring down the World Trade Center and that this event would be a factor in my departure from the company I was working for 10 years ago.

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that I would have a cousin in Italy who was my Facebook friend or that Facebook would be the avenue to get me back in touch with friends I hadn't heard from in 20 years, or for that matter that I would be on Facebook at all, or for that matter there would be such a thing as Facebook.

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that my sister would have a college degree or that my brother would have 2 kids.

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that The Simpsons would still be on the air and that The Sopranos would not be, nor did I imagine that I would still have my HBO subscription after The Sopranos went off the air.

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that I would care about a show like American Idol, much less maintain a blog about it (which reminds me, I'll soon need to restart that blog; where am I going to find the time to do that?)

I could not have imagined 10 years ago that I would be typing this list onto a blog to be read by total strangers for the most part.

I do have a different car than I had 10 years ago, but since the 2000 car was 8 years old and creeping up on 100k miles I did imagine that I would have a different car 10 years later.

I think about all of the people I have met in the last 10 years and all of the people that I have reconnected within in the last 10 years and it just blows me away.

Perhaps the best part about all this is that the different job, the different house, and the different new girlfriend are all an improvement from the ones I had 10 years ago. Now that is something I can hang my hat on.

10 years ago, before I discovered The Sopranos, my favorite TV show was The X-Files.


Now here was a show that was 10 years ahead of its time and whose central arc was the possible alien colonization of Earth 10 years in the future (though it took 9 seasons to figure that out). Back then I rarely missed an episode, even the ones that didn't have David Duchovny in them. The X-Files paved the way for a number of new TV shows with similar themes and mythologies like Lost and Fringe. Funny thing is that I don't watch any of those shows anymore. I don't think I would have imagined that 10 years ago either.

And who thought 10 years ago there would be something like Wikipedia?