The future doesn’t have to feel depressing, and the next generation may be the best suited to remind us. Around the world, kids are seeing the future as an opportunity to apply their creativity. One of those kids is Gitanjali Rao, who lives in Lone Tree, Colorado and won TIME magazine’s first-ever Kid of the Year award.

“The really exciting thing is that our generation is growing up in a place where we’re seeing problems that have never existed before,” said Rao. “It’s up to us to take control of that opportunity and realize that innovation is a necessity, not an option.”

TIME has been naming a Person of the Year since 1927. In 2019, Greta Thunberg (then 16 years old) became the youngest person ever to receive the award. In 2020, T/ME created the Kid of the Year award and chose 15-year-old Rao and four honorees out of 5,000 people under18 for making a positive impact.

And Rao certainly is.

•She created a handheld lead detection system inspired by the Flint water crisis.

•She invented a device to measure opioids in your blood (to prevent addiction if you’re taking prescription opioid medication)

•She developed an anti-bullying app called Kindly.

•She’s leading workshops all over the world to help kids become innovators and wrote a book about the process.

Her interests are so varied, and she’s able to turn a problem into something that inspires her to take action, and then she just starts by reading a lot. “I read about resources on the Internet, learn more about the subject and see what connects back to the work I’m doing,” she explained.

There is definitely support behind her. “They allowed me to explore beyond what I thought was the normal,” she said, speaking of her parents. “I’m really fortunate to have parents who let me go after my passions instead of forcing me into something else.”

That passion, mixed with a solid dose of optimism, is what she thinks we need to handle the future. She says that it’s about taking lots and lots of small steps — towards something you’re passionate about, and that’s what she wants to encourage everyone to do. “Find something and go for it, because YOU can make a difference in this world,” Rao said.

One day, I was sitting in a local coffee shop, and staring at this man in a wheelchair. He could move his head and parts of his fingers but nothing else. He had a servant who cut up his food and placed it on a special mechanically powered fork that he would use to eat.

He saw me staring at him and invited me to join him at his table. His name was Stephen. For several hours we sat at that table and we got to know each other on a deeply personal level. I had never known a man who was more radiant(容光焕发), more energizing to talk and get to know than Stephen.

Stephen used to be a very successful businessman in Denver. He was in the natural gas business. Thirteen years before, when he was forty, he was waiting for news of a natural gas discovery to occur any moment.

He said, “I had so much nervous energy. I saw the storm clouds gathering, and I decided to clean out the gutters(屋檐排水沟) rather than sitting around waiting for this gas well to come in.”

He climbed up the ladder to clear the piles of pine needles(松针) on the roof. As he backed up, he accidentally fell off the roof. He landed on his back. He was paralyzed(瘫痪) for the rest of his life, except for his head and his hand.

I asked him, “How do you do it all? How do you suddenly stop hiking, fishing, and running marathons?”

He said, “There are three things you have to do when something like this happens. The first thing you have to do is adjust. The second thing you do is adjust. And the third thing you do is adjust.”

He said, “By adjusting to your abilities, Bill, you have to change your self-expectations. If you can’t be a physical athlete any longer, then perhaps you can be a spiritual athlete.” He was.

The year 2020 marks the beginning of the decade of the yold, or the “young old”， as the Japanese call people aged between 65 and 75, who continue to work and stay socially engaged. 【小题1】. The yold are more numerous, healthier and wealthier than previous generations of seniors.

【小题2】 Of the 3.7 years of increased life expectancy(预期寿命)in rich countries between 2000 and 2015, says the WHO, 3.2 years were enjoyed in good health. Working is one of the factors that are helping people stay healthy longer. A German study found that people who remain at work after the normal retirement age manage to slow the cognitive (认知的)decline. The yold are also better off, while the wealth of all other age groups declined.

The yold are not just any group of old people They are challenging the traditional expectations of the retired as who are wearing indoor shoes and look after the grandchildren. 【小题3】They become one of the fastest growing group for airline business. They spend much more, when taking a foreign holiday, than young adults.   So they   are vital to   the   Tourism industry. They are also changing education and finance Because of the importance of pensions,the yold are transforming insurance companies from passive distributors of fired an nuities (年金)to financial service providers for customers who want to   manage their pension pots more actively.

【小题4】They find that older workers have, if anything,slightly above-average productivity and that teams of workers from multiple generations are the most productive of all.Societies should be better off because public spending on health and pensions should be lower than expected, as people work longer and need less medical care.

Today,some big things will have to change, under pressure from the yold themselves. The most important is public attitudes towards older people and in particular the expectation that 60-somethings ought to quietly retire into the background. 【小题5】 The yold will demand that companies become more age-friendly and,in the process,help change attitudes towards aging itself.