Dear Generations of the Future

We hope this message finds you well.

In 2026 we begin so many messages this way that it’s almost lost its meaning, but in this case, we really hope it’s true. Because there is a very real chance that if those of us in the here and now don’t manage to improve matters soon, this message may not find you as well as we hope.

We could have started this letter with an apology. An apology for not doing more and leaving you in the mess you might be in. But we aren’t starting it with an apology, because we know we still have time in the present to change things in the future. Instead, this letter is more of a collection of commitments which will require creativity, courage and care.

While trying to remain positive, we must admit that we are facing some pretty difficult challenges at the moment. But which of our previous generations has not had challenges to face? We are all challenged in our own way, and someone once said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

That river of time flows from us to you as it flowed from our predecessors to us. What we cast into it today will find its way to you in time like a message in a bottle. As we navigate the dawn of an artificial age, where technology brings some of us closer but divides an even greater number of others, we know that there is work to be done.

We hope that…
your communities are more analogue and less digital
you focus more on friends than followers
you enjoy greater unity through community
you practice democracy, and don’t just read about it in history books
you have greater equality, and that you have already moved forward towards harmony – between people and people and people and planet
your machines do your menial tasks but not your thinking
your planet is still blue and green and white in the right places, and not red
you have moved on from “just us” to “justice”
you have the power to adapt and the strength to hold firm, as you deem appropriate
you don’t have to rely on hope, but that it’s there when you need it.
We hope you can breathe.

We understand that we sow the seeds of the future and will not be there to see the fruits. The harvest will be left for you. But what we don’t sow today cannot be expected to bear fruit tomorrow. We have work to do, to both level the fields and make them more fertile. We will find the courage to continue to sow, for even as some seeds will fail, others will grow.

The commitments made in our lifetime will echo in yours and all the lifetimes to come. There is no future but that which we make for ourselves. Actions speak louder than words and we need to dare to dream but also dare to do. And as we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us, we in turn will lift you up.

We will find the courage to leave the safety of the “tried and tested” and seek out new paths leading to something better, brighter and more beautiful. It’s out there somewhere, and maybe by now you are enjoying it. We certainly hope so.

We promise not to choose the easiest path, nor the safest, nor the one walked most often. We will find the courage to create new paths, even if the ground is uncertain, safe in the knowledge that there is no more certain outcome than the step never taken. After all, we cannot continue to call ourselves “risk-takers” without taking risks. Helplessness and inertia are contagious, and we need to become immune.

There will be doubters. There always are. They will not discourage us. Instead, we will break down the seemingly impossible into the merely difficult, and then the “difficult” to the “done”. And then you will wonder why we didn’t do it sooner.

We will do less “talking at” and more “listening to”. And swap “passively worry” for “actively do”. We will learn from the past and build something new.

We can’t do this alone. So we will bring people together, to build bridges towards, and not walls around, each other. We will endeavour to make and mend, rather than break and bend.

We hope that this message finds you; and that it finds you well.

By the time you read this, we will have been the change you wanted to see. Our planet is now your planet. Our communities are now your communities. Please look after them both. They aren’t yours forever any more than they are ours. Until then, we have work to do before the skies darken. And in the words of Dylan Thomas, we promise we will “not go gentle into that good night, but rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

There is no future but that which we make for ourselves.