What Kind of Future Are We Creating? 2040, Children, Meditation and the Worlds We Imagine

What Kind of Future Do We Want to Live In?

When we hear about climate change, artificial intelligence, environmental destruction and everything that seems uncertain about the future, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. There are certainly enough reasons to worry.

But over the years, I have become increasingly interested in a different question:

What if we spent more time imagining the future we actually want to create?

This question came back to me several times recently through very different experiences. First, I thought about the documentary 2040, which I watched a few years ago. Then I found myself thinking about Herbert Grönemeyer’s song Kinder an die Macht. I came across research exploring meditation with children. And this summer, while visiting London, I experienced Liam Young’s immersive exhibition In Other Worlds.

At first, these things might seem to have very little in common.

But for me, they eventually came together around one simple idea:

The future is not only something we wait for. It is something we participate in creating.

Imagining a Different Future with 2040

When I first watched Damon Gameau’s 2019 documentary 2040, what stayed with me was not simply its discussion of climate change. It was the decision to approach the subject from a different emotional perspective.

Instead of creating another documentary about everything that could go wrong, Gameau asked what the world could look like if we implemented solutions that already exist.

The film explores possibilities including renewable energy, regenerative agriculture, sustainable transportation, ocean-based solutions, education and changes in the way we organize our communities.

What I found particularly moving was that the film was created as a kind of visual letter to Gameau's young daughter. The question was essentially: What kind of planet could her generation inherit if we make different choices now?

That changes the emotional quality of the conversation.

Climate change is still serious. The challenges do not disappear simply because we choose to be optimistic. But optimism can give us something that fear alone cannot provide:

a reason to act.

Hope is not the same as pretending that everything will be fine. Sometimes hope means looking honestly at a difficult situation and asking, What is still possible?

The Future We Imagine Matters

This idea became even more interesting to me when I visited the immersive exhibition In Other Worlds by Liam Young at the Barbican in London.

The exhibition invited visitors into several imagined futures for our planet. Rather than presenting one prediction about what the future will look like, Young created different possible worlds based on real technologies, climate challenges and ideas about how humanity could change.

Some of the worlds were beautiful and hopeful.

Others were unsettling, enormous and almost frightening.

And I think that contrast was the point.

We are constantly telling ourselves stories about the future. Some of those stories tell us that technology will save us. Others imagine that artificial intelligence will destroy our lives. Some imagine ecological collapse, while others imagine that humanity could completely redesign the way we live.

In Other Worlds made me think about the fact that the future we imagine influences the choices we consider possible today.

One of the most striking works, World Machine, explores a future shaped by the enormous energy demands of artificial intelligence. Young imagines a planetary supercomputer in which the Earth's surfaces become part of a vast network of power and computation.

That sounds frightening.

But the work does not stop there. It also imagines enormous renewable-energy systems powering AI infrastructure while existing alongside rewilded landscapes.

The same technology can therefore lead us to very different questions.

Will we use technology simply to consume more?

Or could we use it to help us restore, understand and protect the world around us?

The answer is not predetermined.

And that is what I loved about the exhibition. It did not tell me, This is the future.

It asked me:

Which future are we choosing?

Children Are Part of That Future

That question naturally brings me to children.

There is a song by Herbert Grönemeyer called Kinder an die Macht, which translates roughly as Children to Power. I have loved the idea behind the song for a long time, even though I don't interpret its title literally.

The song plays with the contrast between the seriousness and complexity of the adult world and the openness, imagination and playfulness associated with children.

Children are not automatically wiser than adults, of course. They still need guidance, boundaries and education.

But they can remind us of qualities that adults sometimes lose along the way:

curiosity, imagination, spontaneity, honesty, creativity and the ability to see possibilities where others see limitations.

Perhaps that is one reason the song continues to resonate with me.

If we want to create a different future, we cannot only change technology and infrastructure.

We also have to think about the people who will inherit that future.

What Happens When Children Learn to Work With Their Minds?

This is where meditation enters the conversation for me.

Research conducted in collaboration with Bond University explored the effects of a school-based meditation program involving almost 900 children between the ages of four and eleven. Over ten weeks, children practiced short, age-appropriate meditations during the school day.

The research team reported improvements including greater self-regulation and reductions in emotional and behavioral difficulties, with additional improvements in areas such as happiness, school performance or emotional awareness depending on the age group.

I find this fascinating because meditation is sometimes presented as something adults turn to only after life becomes overwhelming.

But perhaps learning to pause, notice our thoughts and emotions, and become more aware of ourselves can be a valuable skill much earlier in life.

Imagine children growing up knowing that they can take a moment to breathe.

That they can notice what they are feeling.

That they do not have to react to every thought or emotion immediately.

That they can imagine different possibilities before deciding what they want to create.

Those may sound like small things.

But small things practiced consistently can become part of who we are.

And perhaps that is one way of thinking about the future: not as one enormous event, but as millions of small choices repeated by millions of people.

We Don't Have to Know Exactly What the Future Looks Like

One thing connects 2040, In Other Worlds, meditation and my thoughts about children particularly strongly for me.

None of them requires us to know exactly what the future will look like.

We don't need a perfect blueprint.

We can simply ask better questions.

What if our cities were designed differently?

What if renewable energy became the foundation of our communities?

What if technology supported nature instead of always competing with it?

What if artificial intelligence became a tool for solving problems rather than simply increasing consumption?

What if children were taught not only what to think, but how to become aware of their own thoughts and emotions?

What if creativity and imagination were treated as essential skills rather than luxuries?

And perhaps most importantly:

What if we stopped teaching children that the future is something they should be afraid of?

How We Can Help Create a More Hopeful Future

Of course, imagining a better world is only the beginning. We still have to live our values.

For me, that can happen in surprisingly ordinary ways.

We can choose more sustainable products and reduce unnecessary consumption. We can learn about renewable energy and support solutions that move us away from fossil fuels. We can spend time in nature and teach children to appreciate the living world around them.

We can encourage children to create instead of only consume.

We can give them opportunities to be curious, make things, explore ideas and express themselves.

And we can model the emotional skills we hope they will develop. Taking a breath before reacting, listening to another person, admitting when we are wrong, choosing kindness and allowing ourselves to imagine something better are all small forms of creating the future.

We don't have to wait until we are powerful enough to change the entire world.

We can begin with the world immediately around us.

The Future Begins With What We Give Children Today

Perhaps this is ultimately why my thoughts keep coming back to children.

The children growing up today will live with the consequences of the decisions we are making now.

They will experience the technologies we are developing.

They will inherit the cities we build, the ecosystems we protect or destroy, and the culture we create around them.

But they will also inherit something less tangible:

the stories we tell them about what is possible.

If we constantly tell them that the future is frightening, hopeless and already determined, what possibilities will they imagine?

And if we tell them that their creativity matters, their choices matter, their inner world matters and that there are many possible futures, what might they create?

This is one reason I love creating children's clothing with messages of joy, imagination, kindness and self-expression.

For me, children's fashion does not have to be only about what looks cute.

A piece of clothing can also carry a little reminder.

Be curious.
Be kind.
Give yourself time.
Follow your imagination.
Let yourself be you.

Maybe a shirt cannot change the world.

But perhaps the message a child sees, wears and grows up with can become part of their inner world.

And perhaps the inner worlds we nurture today eventually become the outer world we live in tomorrow.

So, What Future Are We Creating?

I don't know what the world will look like in 2040.

I don't know exactly how artificial intelligence will change our lives, whether the most ambitious climate solutions will succeed, or which of the many possible futures we are currently moving toward.

And perhaps we don't need to know.

What I do believe is that the future is influenced by what we choose to imagine, what we choose to value and what we choose to practice today.

2040 reminded me that solutions already exist.

In Other Worlds reminded me that there are many possible futures, including futures that are hopeful as well as those that are deeply unsettling.

Meditation research with children reminded me that the next generation can be given tools to become more aware of themselves.

And Kinder an die Macht reminded me of something wonderfully simple: perhaps we could all benefit from bringing a little more of the child's curiosity, imagination and joy into the way we approach the world.

We don't have to know exactly where we are going.

But we can choose the direction.

And maybe creating a better future begins with believing that a better future is possible.