Picture this. It is somewhere in the 60's. A person is sitting on a bed is listening to the radio, which is the primary mode of entertainment and connection with the outside world (apart from newspapers ofcourse).

The radio is playing an advertisement and right after that there is an announcement from the future by one of those mad scientists. The scientist proclaims that in the near future, we would be able to see live video feeds in our homes on a world-wide network which everyone plugs into and it will become our go-to mechanism for everything.

What is the likelihood of the ordinary man with his radio on, believing in this? I would like to think, very less. He may just ignore it all as rumblings of some stupid mind. He would proudly proclaim radio as the best thing that happened in his generation and get on with his work.

And now imagine that person, old, perhaps in his 80's. Sitting in front of an internet enabled TV with a smartphone in his home controlling the experience. It has turned into a reality. So long for his proud proclamation about the simple radio. Heck, he can now login to any radio channel in the world and listen to it!

This is change! Guaranteed, destined, and having arrived within a single person's lifetime.

What is amazing is, this ordinary person adapted to all the changes life and society brought on over the years. His life became better (or worse?), it became easy (or more complicated?), and it became more liveable (so we claim!). All those advancements, not just in consumer technology, but in every other sphere of life, resulted in massive shifts. And this person lapped them all up!

We, in this day and age, have stopped questioning what is possible technologically and have rather started to take bets on when will it happen. The pace of change has hastened over the last couple of decades and continues unabated. And we continue to adapt to it in the same rythm, to make the best use of it as per our understanding.

And yet, the change which is ever so welcome in our lives, hasn't yet permeated to the same levels in our individual thinking about how will the evolution be in terms of social context, behaviors, and motivations. We still believe that what has happened with us, the way we have lived our lives, is how the next few generations will also experience it. It has been true for most of us but there is no guarantee it will stay the same for our children and beyond.

This week, as I was talking to a friend about how the lives of our children will unfold, I realized that I subscribe to this theory of societal change and therefore, want to consciously not plan too much for it. Not that I have anything against supporting our daughter as she grows up. It's just that I don't really know how her life will unfold or what motivations will guide her choices.

I don't know how she will want to live out her life. If she would even want any help from us. Will money be a useful metric for her or not. Will she want to have a stable career or be someone who would rather accumulate experiences doing multiple things. Will she want to have a partner or not.

I could go on with the questions. But you get the drift.

The choices she will make, I believe, are surely going to be different from the ones that aided my decisions. And it doesn't make sense for me to plan for too much but rather adapt myself and support her in the way that feels apt for that time and to her mind.

Don't know if what I am thinking is the right approach or not. What I do believe though is that our relationships and the society will surely change in the next 60 years, just like it has for that person who is now in his 80's...