If you had asked me ten years ago tonight where I would be living and what I would be doing at the dawn of 2010, my guesses would not have been close to the mark.There has been some continuity from the beginning of 2000 through today:Then as now I was interested in democracy and human development.Then as now I was in love with Sharon Hutchison; we got married in 2001.But I could not have anticipated how much I would learn in the decade ahead, and how the process would change me and my circumstances.When I was younger I imagined adulthood as a sort of plateau: Once you reached a certain age, you just sort of settled in and lived your life.In my experience there are indeed huge numbers of adults who want exactly that for themselves: stability, finality, and an end to questing, with all of its attendant anxiety and uncertainty.My life has not turned out that way, and now I know myself well enough to realize that it never will.

I would say “I’m all about the quest” (I typed and erased the phrase twice), but it’s not entirely true.I am all about the need for questing, and sometimes impatient with other people’s cravings for pat final answers, especially when clinging to those answers means becoming numb to the lessons that can be gained from experiences.But in the past decade I’ve had some experiences of stability that have freed me to learn in new and profound ways.One of those experiences has been spending six and a half years at UMBC.Our campus community is intensely familiar to me, more familiar than any other community of which I have been a part.I’ve literally occupied the same space—my little corner of The Commons’ 2^nd floor—the entire time.Yet instead of stagnating or re-living the same academic year again and again, I’ve thrived and grown.Maybe the fact that the community is constantly renewing itself with new members has made the difference.In any case, feeling at home has helped liberate me to explore and create, and to embrace changes initiated by students and colleagues.Every day I take risks, and every day learn something new, in part because I feel safe enough to be who I truly am, questions and uncertainties and all.

Where will I be 10 years from now?I’m less willing to predict that than ever before, partly because I have become better at embracing the present.I used to be full of big plans.Now I’m more attentive to the problems I’m trying to solve and the contributions I’m trying to make than to the details of my career path.Also, I’m more aware of how vulnerable we all are to the vicissitudes of life.In the past ten years I’ve had my mother-in-law, other family members and a close friend pass away, and watched friends’ and relatives’ marriages fall apart.So above all I’m going to treasure all that I have, and appreciate the enormity of my privilege: For the most part, I get to struggle with the problems of my own choosing.If I’m lucky, I’ll be struggling with some version of those same problems, and continuing to create and contribute to solutions in partnership with people I respect and care about, ten years hence.I’m getting some amazing opportunities to make those contributions at UMBC, and I’d like to think that I’ll still be a part of our community at the dawn of 2020, and that the impact of our collective work will be felt across the United States.Based on the developments of the past few years (see this, for example), I think that’s a reasonable hope.

Ten years ago, on December 31, 1999, I was spending a quiet evening with my future wife at her apartment.At one point, stretching out on the carpeted floor, I started writing on the lined pages of a blank journal, trying to capture my sense of the moment.Here is some of what I wrote:

Across the world, people are celebrating the dawn of a new millennium.Of course, it’s not really a new millennium but the beginning of the last year of the old one, but popular fascination with the change from 1999 to 2000 seems to have pretty much redefined the term.Even the newspapers are calling this the arrival of the next millennium (and century and decade), and there is round-the-clock TV coverage of millennium celebrations.I watched some of the TV coverage while I was working out at the gym today, and it was both awesome and tacky—like a huge sporting event, with color commentators giving statistics about the number of fireworks being used in London, and how nice it is that England, having “gone through so much” in the past century, can party on into the new one.

Along with the big parties and endless attempts to sum up the period we are about to leave behind (usually focusing on the century rather than the millennium, because even the most ambitious commentators probably don’t believe they are in a position to choose, say, the ‘Athlete of the Millennium’), much public attention has focused on the potential for disaster.This anticipation has focused on three categories of possible calamity: First, the infamous Y2K computer problem, which people thought might shut down the power grid, erase hard drives, eliminate financial records and cause planes to fall out of the sky; second, terrorism aimed at causing bedlam in the midst of chaos; and third (and least), apocalyptic upheavals: literally, the end of the world.These possibilities did not create widespread panic, especially because in recent weeks every indication has been that the Y2K problem would not cause the large-scale disruptions that had been feared.But many people have taken prudent precautions, like staying away from the big gatherings tonight, and stockpiling food and water.I bought enough bottled water and canned food to last for a week or so, and brought my flashlight here . . .

I imagine that in the distant future, the 1990s will be remembered for two things: First, the dramatic growth of the Internet and the public use of all things digital; second, the great economic boom, which made billionaires of high-tech entrepreneurs (with more ambiguous results for the rest of us, as the gap between rich and poor—and between the very rich and everybody else—grew as well).Culturally, it’s been a weird time, as the Internet and expansion of various media have seemed to bring everything closer to everybody, and yet all public things—government, big institutions, celebrities, etc.—have seemed to become harder to reach, more abstract, more like fiction.The O.J. Simpson trial and the Clinton impeachment were major sources of entertainment, no more real-seeming than the best TV dramas and movies.The public myth is that anybody could become the next Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos by starting a hot new ‘dot com’ company, and at some level, most people who have not done so, or at least made a killing in the stock market, probably feel left behind or even cheated.But the world of Gates and Bezos, like the world of Simpson and Clinton, seems to be separated from our own by a vast gulf.There they all are, on TV; here we are, with no practical way of connecting with them or that reality.

For me, the 1990s have been filled with ambiguity.Back in the 1980s (as I remember them, sitting here tonight) I was on a fairly clear path, and I made dramatic progress.In the 1990s the picture became much more cloudy.I had to choose, rather than merely follow, my path, and choosing meant making tradeoffs, and coming to terms with the complexity and arbitrariness in the world.I didn’t have the comfortable certainty that doing well would mean winning an opportunity to jump through the next golden hoop on the way to everlasting glory, and I didn’t have the constant ego-reinforcing feedback of good grades.It’s been a hard time, punctuated (fortunately) by adventures, friendships, love, and the still-vibrant possibility that my hard choices will prove to have been good ones, and that one day I’ll look back on the 1990s as the difficult-but-necessary, personal-growth-inspiring prelude to the real glory days.

I’ll write more soon.Here I am in 1999, the much-anticipated year 2000 and the rest of my life an hour away.I’m a lucky man, because even in the ambiguous times, I’ve had so many amazing, formative experiences.I’ve lived my fair share of life in my 32+ years, and I’m going to do my very best to make sure that I always will.Happy New Year.