I have been reflecting lately on everything that has transpired over the past few months and how, seemingly overnight, we have transformed as a society with an insatiable thirst for technology to solve the very real problems we are facing.
When you physically cannot be at the places you want to be, you have to find a way to get everything you want and need to come to you. Part of this is jumping on the sudden and sharp demand curve that brings groceries, toilet paper, and late-night food cravings to your front doorstep. The other part is experiencing entire sections of your life through screens.
My phone and laptop have become my windows onto the world. From conversations with friends and family to the entirety of my working life are experienced through these devices.
It seems surreal how quickly this all happened, even for someone like me, who obsesses over how the future might unfold. It feels like we have gone through a decade of change in the past three months. This is on top of the immense change and progress I have experienced in my own life thus far. Given my early years in rural far-western Nepal, I feel like I have lived through 150+ years of technological change in the past three decades.
All of this has given me a great perspective and a unique sense of what is possible.
So, I have been searching for a simple model to define and explain what I have witnessed and experienced. How do I make sense of all the changes that have come about in my short life and the tsunami of technology we might yet experience over the next decade?
The phrase I keep coming back to is, “You don’t have to…”
Technological progress frees us from things we have to do and allows us to spend time doing what we want to do.
Throughout human history and progress, at some point or another, all the statements below seemed nonsensical and ridiculous:
You don’t have to cook.
You don’t have to wash your dishes.
You don’t have to travel for months to visit your friends or family.
You don’t have to commute to work.
You don’t have to go to the bank.
You don’t have to go to the doctor.
You don’t have to own a car.
You don’t have to hire full-time employees.
These are just some examples off the top of my head, in no particular order.
It may sound overly simplistic, but behind every “I have to do…” is an opportunity to create and build something that takes away lots of pain and frustration. Furthermore, it’s a possible way for us to approximate what the future might look like. Find a group of people, companies, or organizations that “have to do” things a certain way and behind that “having to do” is a tremendous opportunity to unlock value and progress.
This naturally leads me to think of the “have to”s of today. What do you feel like you have to do? And what are some of the potential phrases we may unlock in the years, decades, and centuries ahead?
You don’t have to wait in traffic.
You don’t have to give birth.
You don’t have to carry a phone.
You don’t have to eat every day.
You don’t have to work.
You don’t have to work out.
You don’t have to go to sleep.
You don’t have to stay on Earth.
and perhaps one day, “You don’t have to die…”
Some of these phrases are absurd and potentially heretical. But perhaps that is how all progress or technological advancement seems ex-ante. Thinking about the potential for where we might be headed fills me with much hope. It gives me a reason to look past the uncertainty of the months and potentially years ahead and dream about what our lives might look like one day.