Story Time
I just finished reading an excellent book about Norse Mythology. Before that I read an incredibly fascinating book about using DNA in genealogy. Halfway through a story relaying how Odin is the Allfather (since all living beings come from him), I realized that both books dealt with the same exact questions:
Where did we come from?
Where are we going?
I believe the former question is important, but I have always been enamored by the latter. So much so that it penetrates nearly everything I do and am interested in.
First, I love technology. I enjoy playing with it for fun, learning about how it works, utilizing it in business, and any other way I can interact with it.
Second, I lament that our time is finite. I would love to see what future generations build off the technologies created during our brief time on this planet. I truly believe we are living in one the most exciting periods in Earth’s history. Yet we are only in the infancy of what our contributions will offer.
That is all well and good, but what does that have to do with work?
I sell Insurance. What is that if not the ultimate nod to the inevitable future? Yes, we will all pass on one day, but while we live we have the power to leave our own (pecuniary) legacy.
I sell Annuities in an acknowledgment to the unknown future. There is a growing segment who believe that everyone alive in the year 2030 will have a life expectancy of one hundred and twenty years old thanks to medical advances in gene therapies. How does an extra forty years of life expectancy fit in to a retirement plan?
Who is luckier than me? The future is my passion and I get to discuss it every day!
If you are interested, I highly recommend Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman and A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Live by Adam Rutherford.