What do I tell my daughter about the future?

Managing worry in the time of uncertainty

With no in-person soccer practice and plenty of time for homework, I am finding once again that my 14 year old daughter has time to talk with me before bed. Usually, I spend this time listening, but a few weeks ago, she asked me a question — which has stuck in my mind ever since.

“Mom, what should I be worried about?”

My answer was quick, instinctive, and protective, “Oh, honey, you shouldn’t be worried about anything.”

Then I hugged her tight with tears in my eyes.

In the weeks since that conversation, as the impact and uncertainty of the pandemic has intensified, and unprecedented protests against our country’s racism and police brutality continue to gain momentum, I wonder if my answer was protective after all.

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time worried.

My mother, an accomplished physician, was partially driven by an acute, undiagnosed case of the mental illness commonly known as OCD. Her constant worrying about cleanliness and strict adherence to high moral standards likely fueled an intense commitment to do all she could to make Tulsa, OK a healthier place for all people living there. It also resulted in unpredictable, disproportionate reactions to normal childhood behavior. I spent most of my childhood on edge and anxious — unsure when her disappointment and anger would flare up. Like anytime I put milk in the fridge without washing it off first, talked to a friend on the phone about a boy or tested out an opinion.

I swore that when I had kids, they would spend less time worrying.

That is hard under normal circumstances and seems near impossible now.

Making sense of an uncertain future was not only a regular childhood practice and a pressing parental responsibility but for the last eight years it has also been the focus of my job.

I lead a team at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that is charged with identifying emerging trends and anticipating how those trends will affect RWJF’s future efforts to advance health equity. To do this work, my teammates and I spend time reading about the future, networking with people doing pioneering work in various fields in and out of health, exploring hunches and looking for signals that may be a portents of things to come. To be clear, we are not futurists. But we do consult with them and recently hired what we believe to be philanthropy’s first futurist in residence.

So, as a former anxious child, now with anxious children, working in a field anxious to find ways to help shape a more equitable future, what am I to do?

The illness that drove my mother to accomplish so much created unpredictability that helped me prepare for the unexpected. In any situation, I did my best to study, anticipate and, to the extent possible, plan for a variety of contingencies. In short, I did my homework. Once I had done so, my anxiety lessened knowing that I had done all that I could.

I am still using this approach today as I try to understand a future post COVID-19. Here’s how:

I’m seeking out diverse perspectives.

First, I’m spending a lot of time reading others’ observations of what they are seeing and considering different predictions of what the future might bring.

During the first month of COVID-19 in the U.S., it was overwhelming to make sense of it all. But a few weekends ago, right around the time my daughter asked me that question, I sat down and read through 34 pieces exploring a post-COVID-19 future. More recently I have spent a lot of time reading and listening to thoughts about the potential lasting effects of today’s social unrest and activism.

These articles and podcasts raised questions and offered perspectives that, given my life experiences, I could not have previously anticipated. Article after article, prediction after prediction, emphasized the obvious fact that the future is not set in stone. It is shaped by our reactions to events beyond our control and also by our proactive actions to influence emerging trends — provided we are able to spot them in time.

I’m looking for signals.

In her workshops and in her book “The Signals Are Talking”, Amy Webb of Future Today Institute urges those who are trying to anticipate the future to look for signals — early indicators of potential trends. One of her methods for identifying meaningful signals, when there is a lot of noise, is to look for things that are happening that appear to be contradictions.

As I read and observe what is happening during COVID-19, I see contradictions everywhere.

• More people are hungry, while farms have a surplus of food.
• Many essential workers are seen as more valuable, while also not being paid enough to make their jobs worth the risks they are taking.
• Local businesses that people love are closing, while people flock to Amazon despite their misgivings.
• The health of people is suffering, while the health of our planet seems to be improving.

To some, contradictions are confusing. To futurists, conflicting signals can offer clarity — providing a place to focus that may unlock helpful insights.

Amy also encourages those looking for meaningful trends to zero in on “hacks” — when something that was intended for one use is used in a new way. Often, this is when people, not companies, create solutions themselves.

Consider these hacks that are at once so intuitive and inspiring:

• Communities across the country have spawned a Farm to Food Bank movement that is rescuing small scale farmers and helping feed the hungry.
• Towns are widening their sidewalks by blocking off parking spots to allow for more space between pedestrians.
• City agencies are retrofitting school buses as WiFi hotspots to bridge the digital divide.
• Professional soccer players are volunteering to address income inequality within their clubs by giving a portion of their salaries to cover their teammates who work in stadiums.
• Neighbors who aren’t ready to eat out yet are supporting local restaurants by donating meals to protesters and health care workers.

To update the age-old proverb, necessity is the mother of helpful hacks. Of which we will need many, many more in the future.

I’m following some slow hunches.

Beyond relying on the imagination of others, is creating the space to allow our own imaginations to run free. Born from my own observations and reading, I’m developing a few hunches about whether these signals and hacks could be seeds of bigger ideas worth pursuing:

• I’m noticing my daughter and mother-in-law, and thousands of others, crafting masks for health care workers. I wonder if people will start to feel more responsible and able to impact the health of others.
• I’m noticing an increase in the ease and availability of online healthcare appointments. Will the rise in telehealth reduce the burden on patients and doctors alike, or create more health inequities along the digital divide?
• Friends and writers are reporting that some children across the socioeconomic spectrum are thriving in online schools. Could increased access and familiarity with online education close gaps in education outcomes?
• Friends who were terrified to leave their homes two weeks ago are out in crowds on the streets to take part in the Black Lives Matter movement. Could this be a signal that our national priorities are shifting from protecting ourselves to ensuring all neighbors in all our communities feel safe?

I’m trying to create the future I want.

Our futurist-in-residence at RWJF, Trista Harris, has a very simple and healthy process for processing the future. One, stop loving the problem. Two, look for signals of the future in the present. And three, go try it out.

The future is not something that just happens, we create it.

In an unequal society, many do not have the power they need to respond or react to conditions that they did not create. Some people have more power than others. But all of us have some power. What will each of us do with our power to understand and shift the trajectories of trends that are emerging now to build a more equitable future? One that we want not just for ourselves and our children, but for all.

I am privileged to work at a philanthropy that gives grants to understand social determinants of health, experiments with new solutions, supports participatory policy change and shares equitable practices. We have responded to the impact of COVID-19 by providing flexibility in our grants and processes to help grantees adapt to our current reality and by offering humanitarian aid. We are using our voice to highlight the inequities that underpin unequal impacts of COVID-19 on communities of color and to stand in solidarity with those speaking out against anti-Black racial violence and seeking racial justice in America.

My team at RWJF is also making investments in people and organizations who are looking to learn how trends emerging from today’s circumstances will affect the future of health equity, and in people with cutting edge ideas about how to create a better future.

But going back to that conversation with my daughter, my most elemental job is to be a parent.

When I told her to not worry, I thought I was being protective.

But our kids can see in headlines, their social media feed, and on streets across the country, that there are real injustices and inequities in this world. They existed long before COVID-19 and depending upon the actions we take today, may haunt us well into the future. There is actually plenty to be worried about.

So rather than suggesting she dismisses or compartmentalizes her worry, I’m giving my daughter tools to channel that worry into action — helping her see her role in shaping a better future. The very same skill my mother, in a different way, gave me: planning ahead, channeling worry to anticipate — and create — the future.

The Scottish physician, AJ Cronin, once wrote, “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow; it only saps today of its strength.”

He practiced during an era that included World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. He was also a novelist writing about the signals of inequality he saw in his work and in society. His book, The Citadel, was influential in the creation of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.

I am hopeful that we are able to follow this example, and channel our worry into action to prepare for and influence a more equitable future.