A Look Ahead to 2025

In this story, a look ahead to 2025. I’m Joanne Greene.Vision boards are easy. You look through magazines and find photos of places you’d like to go, outfits you’d see yourself wearing, cars you’d want to drive, vacations you’d like to take.When creating a verbal vision board, there are no suggestions, no ideas from which to choose. You’re making the cake from scratch, without a mix or a recipe.2025 sounds like the far-off future, yet it’s moments away. In 1979, I hosted a radio show called “The 80’s”, filled with interviews and speculation on where things were headed. Five years later, I could hardly believe we’d made it to 1984. George Orwell surely had a few things right.What I couldn’t have imagined, years ago, was Waymo, the robot car as my 3-year-old grandson calls it. I couldn’t have conceived of artificial intelligence, where my skills as both a voice over talent and a writer would be supplanted by a free service, available to all, in seconds.While in high school, I read Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”, a book published in 1962 which exposed the dangers of the pesticide DDT & questioned our collective faith in technology. Carson, among others, sowed the seeds of the environmental movement, which grew against the odds. I came of age being skeptical of corporations looking the other way when concern threatened profits, ad campaigns that convinced us chemicals were safe. Natural settings called to me, though they were not the natural habitat of my childhood, just outside of Boston, where I spent more time in movie theaters, bowling alleys and department stores. As a teenager it became clear that I could breathe more freely outdoors, that I could think more clearly surrounded by trees and bodies of water. I moved to California post college and grew to love hiking, finding both solace and adventure in wild places.In 2025, I will become certified as a nature and forest therapy guide, spending more and more of my time communing with plants, insects, and animals, finding peace in stillness, slowing down enough to notice what most of us, including me, generally miss. I imagine bringing groups of people into natural places and, with any luck, guiding at least some of them into liminal experiences that ground them and expose them to new parts of themselves.After a career in radio journalism, more than a decade running out of the box Jewish programs at a community center, and publishing a memoir, I could not have predicted that this is what my next chapter would be. It’s about listening to that still, small voice within and taking a risk. I rarely regret the moves I make when I trust my gut. Here’s to new beginnings and a very happy, healthy, growth-filled, new year!Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!Joanne’s book, “By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go” is now available from your favorite online book seller. Stay tuned to hear if Joanne will be speaking at a bookstore near you. If you’re interested in having her come to your local bookstore, contact her directly at [email protected] or get updates on her website at joanne-greene.com and make sure to sign up for her newsletter!