Back to  the Future


I was 16, sitting in my room, on the bed, reading a teen magazine, and listening to Billy Joel. A voice suddenly spoke from the sky. "What do you spend your free time doing, right now, in 1985?" it asked. 

After putting down my mag, and looking around, I wondered if I had suddenly gone "mental." Yet, for some reason, I felt compelled to answer the voice.

 "What's it look like? Reading, listening to the radio, hanging out with my best friend, chatting on the phone. Watching TV. Or, I should say, fighting with my siblings, over the TV. Oh, and writing in my diary. Why? And who are you, anyway?"

"That's crazy!" the voice said. "You have no idea what changes a few decades will bring! And I am just a voice from the future, giving you a heads up! Can you imagine being 45?"

 "Me? 45?" I ask. "Of course not. I do not want to live past 50. I so do not want to get old!"

"Ha ha!" The voice said. "You will live to be 45,  just so you know, and here is just some of the things that will change!"

I had to admit I was curious, so I listened!

 "For example." the voice explained, "When you are 45, your phone will no longer be attached to the wall, with a long springy cord. You will carry a small one around with you. You will be able to make it ring to your favorite song. People will send you little messages and pictures on this gadget. All your contacts will be in this phone. If you lose it, you will totally freak out!"

 "You are telling me, that in the future, we will be walking around with our  phones?" I asked. "Are we expecting the president to call? Get out of town!"

"Cell phones are only the beginning! You think it is weird, now at 16, that your best friend's dad has a computer that talks. You ain't seen nothing yet! It can not really do anything! However, in a couple of decades, computers will rule the world. They will be your best friend, or your worst enemy, depending on how well they are working."

"Say that again?"

"Believe it or not, computers will connect people around the world, instantly, in mail, sent to and from something referred to as "cyberspace." Friends and family will message you, and talk to you-- face to face-- on video, on things called Web Cams. Almost like you see on  on that cartoon, The Jetsons! You will be able to contact people on the other side of the world, in moments. You will make friends that you may never meet in person!"

"How in the world?"

"Resistance is futile! Most of your life will be on a computer, all your personal information. You will use it to do online banking. Cameras will change to work with computers. Radios, and stereos will almost disappear. So will record albums. You will have music in your pocket! People will watch movies on computers, some that they will hold in their hand. You will shop on the computer. All your journaling will be done on the computer, as well."

"I am thinking this is just a new movie trailer. Nice try, though."

  "No, quite to the contrary. In fact, in your 30's, you will be considered computer savvy! People over the age of 50, will look to you for help with their computers. Once you are over 40, however, commonly used technology of the young and spry will far surpass your expertise and your budget. You will not have what is commonly referred to as a Smart Phone. Just a dumb one. And, you will wish the for the good ol' days, when you still had something called XP, on your personal computer."

"X what?"

"You will also write a book, and people will buy it, and read it, on the computer. No paper involved!"

"Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"

 "See this TV that sits in your house, on a TV stand, with an antenna? When you are 45, people will have been hanging large flat TVs on the wall, for quite awhile, TVs that will work a lot like the above mentioned computers. They will not have tubes. Tube TVs will be sold for a dollar at the Salvation Army. 

Those that wish to do so, will watch shows in multiple rooms, and at whatever time they want to watch them. You will not have to worry anymore, about missing your favorite show, and no one will be fighting over the TV."

"This is starting to sound like a Star Trek movie! Live long and prosper!"

"On to another subject, weren't you were bullied in junior high school?"

"Um, as a matter of fact, yes! You ought to know, seeing as you know so much!"

  "When you are 45, kids will no longer just be bullying each other in the hallways at school, or in the lunchroom. Be glad you are growing up when you are! Kids will be bullying each other on the computer in the future, on the Internet cyberspace, and on their phones. 'Cyber bullying' they will call it. 

Pictures will no longer be able to be disappear just by destroying a negative, or all copies of a picture. Once a picture is in cyberspace, it will be there forever. Be careful! It will be a whole new world!"

"I guess it will be! That's insane!"

"And, by the way, in the future, friends and family will also be able to update you on every detail of their lives, on the computer, on places called Twitter and Facebook. They will tell you, (and even up to a hundred people, some of whom they barely know, but still refer to as "friends,") about where they went to dinner, and when they walked the dog!"

"Why, exactly, again?"

"The music you are listening to right now, will be, in the future,  considered "classic," and you will start listening to it, again, when you are 40. Anything written after the year 2000, you will insist just sounds like a lot of repetitious noise."

"Hey, I plan to never grow old! I will always be up on what is cool! And the year 2000... well. that alone sounds  pretty sci-fi!"

"You like to say you will never get old. You claim will never talk about the good ol' days, and that you will never say things like "You are too young to remember this." Ha! So you think!"

 "Hmm, now I am getting a little freaked out!"

"You will be married not once, but twice, by the way. But at least you will make a better choice, the second time around."

"Whatcha talking about Willis? What happened the first time?"

"That is not all that will happen to you! When you are in your 40's, drinking Pepsi, eating chocolate, popcorn, hamburgers, french fries, and fried foods, will put you in the hospital, on a regular basis, because you will have not have a gall bladder, and you will develop something called Crohn's disease. 

For an undisclosed amount time, your diet will limited to about 20 things! Your hair will start to fall out, and various other weird things will happen to you! Enjoy your soda and candy bars now, while you can!"

"Whaaaaaat? Where's the beef?" And where's my hair?

"Speaking of hair, you will decide to be a red-head, instead of a blonde, in your thirties. No one is really into dying their hair now, but when you are 45, it will be very common. But even more so, for younger people, to tattoo themselves, all over their bodies, and to get painful looking piercings, in very strange places, like their lips and their tongues. They will burn giant holes into their ear lobs and put the earrings inside the lobs. It is kind of an a African tribal look. And when they take these earrings out, oh the smell!" 

"Gag me with a spoon! What kinds of drugs are they taking in the future, anyhow? This sounds like a very personal problem! And disgusting!"

"When you are 45, you will be telling kids, that are 16, who are reading books without covers, using phones with no cords, who never heard of a record, who grew up with the Internet, that has always given them access to instant knowledge about almost anything, at any time they want it, and who rarely have to wait for anything called a "letter," just how good they have it!"

"I promised myself I would never say any of these things!"

"Well, you had not gone back to the future, yet."

"In a Delorean?"

"Very funny!"

"Is anything going to be the same?"

"Jesus is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. God will never change. You will go to college, though you think it impossible, now, and you have no desire to go. You will do much better in college, than you are in high school. You will make some good decisions, like going to a Bible College, and then teaching children in church, about the Lord."

"Totally? That's cool."

"Other choices you make, however, like who to marry the first time around, will come back to bite you. But God will be there through it all. The world will change, but He will not. 

Musicians and TV icons that you somewhat trusted, will disappoint a lot of people with their moral choices. America will start to elect presidents that want to destroy the country. They will do things, presidents have never done before! Lots of things will happen, even in your own family, that will surprise you.

As for you, do not give up hope. You will meet the right man, find the right church, get back on the right path. God has it all under control."

"I think I am on overload! I am going back to my magazine now, and any other distraction I can find! This has to be a bad dream!"

"Hang tight, and don't let go!"