Today is November 30th, and when the clock strikes 12:01am, we will enter the last month, of the last year, of the last decade, of the last century of the millennium. So what do you think is going to happen?

With the end of the millennium just weeks away, many people have made a variety of predictions as to what they think will happen when we reach “Y2K”. The funny thing is, everyone’s predicting terrible disasters and horrible calamities. Some people expect a worldwide computer crash because many computers are not Y2K compliant and will read 01-01-00 as January 1, 1900 instead of January 1, 2000, so they are removing all of their money from the banks before December 31st. Other people predict that everything from electricity, to television networks, to ATM machines, to telephones will stop functioning, so they are stocking up on batteries, canned food and bottled water. Some people even believe that religion will play a role in Y2K, and that when we reach our 2000th year, that may mean the coming of the Messiah – or the coming of Armageddon, so they are preparing for anything from a visit from God to earthquakes, famine, floods, or plagues. Doesn’t anyone see Y2K as a beginning instead of an end?

Everyone fears the unknown, and let’s face it, this is not just another new year, this is the dawn of a new millennium. Modern man (and woman) will reach it’s 2,000th year of evolution. Humans will enter the much-anticipated 21st Century having existed for the past two thousand years. But doesn’t anyone realize that if we came this far in the past 2000 years, how far will we go in the next 2000?

Think about it, in the past 2000 years, we, as the modern human race, have come so far. Our range of exploration has stretched from landing on Plymouth Rock to walking on the surface of the moon and landing on the surface of Mars. Our means of mobility have gone from a horse and carriage to motorized vehicles with their own on-board Satellite Navigation System. Our need to communicate with each other has taken us from a telegram delivered by the Pony Express to electronic mail sent on the Information Superhighway. Our knowledge of medicine went from using leeches and whiskey during surgery to being able to successfully replace a human heart and clone a living sheep. Our need to record and store information took us from scrolls to computers that can fit in the palm of our hands. Our desire to entertain ourselves has taken us from live plays and concerts to movies where the main stars are computer-generated animations instead of living actors.

And now, we are taking all that and entering Y2K. With what we have done as a race so far despite all of our natural and self-inflicted problems, who knows what we will discover, invent, create or develop by Y3K or Y4K.

So if you really think about it, Y2K is not an end – it’s a beginning.