"The Past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift – that's why they call it the present" ---Elvis Stojko
When I find myself looking back at this decade I wonder how things might have been if certain events never happened. How would the world be going right now if 9/11 never happened? Would we be in this recession right now? There is a lot of "what could have been" when it comes to these events but no matter how much you think about what could have been it will never be because you can't change the past only look forward towards the future. Let us look at some of the events that have changed my life and probably more than likely also affected your life.
We'll start in the year 2001 and talk about 9/11 one of the biggest disasters to happen in America while I've been alive. I was in fourth grade feeling sick and in the nurse's office waiting to go home because they said I should. Then I heard one of the nurses come in and start saying "The towers have been hit! They have no idea what's going on!". Just like them I had no clue what was going on but for different reasons such as I was too young to understand that someone would want to harm others. My dad came to pick me up and told me that something big had happened and it was going to change the face of America forever. It was no use to me at the time because I wasn't even sure what was going on so I just sat there clueless wondering what I should say or do. Looking back on that day, seeing how many people died, it's hard to think back on that because you just want to move on but it's hard to deny two planes flying into the towers and killing over three thousand people wasn't one of the biggest things to happen in our decade.
Now let's switch it up from something depressing to something that lifted the spirits of many, well at least most of us who cheer for the Boston sports teams. This decade was great for the Boston sports fan, just look at how many championships we won in this decade. The Red Sox in 2004 broke the curse and won their first title since 1918 and then came back in 2007 and decided to win another one. The Celtics won a championship in 2008 after trading away most of their team to put together the "Big Three" consisting of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Finally we have the Patriots who won three championships this decade behind one of the best QB's in the game Tom Brady and a lot of key players such as Kevin Faulk, Troy Brown, Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison and many others. The teams of Boston provided the people with one of the best decades this city has had for a long time and for that I thank them.
Alright so we went on two events so far that had actually happened but like I said at the start what if you think about something that didn't happen? Well let's imagine that we are in 2005 a month before the Xbox 360 is supposed to be announced to the public. This time though the people instead of being hyped for the next generation of games they are complaining about the cost of games. The people refuse to buy a new console unless the prices of these games come down but if this happens then companies will start to lose money. The companies refuse to do this and the people become enraged and refuse to buy anymore games which cause games to go into a crash. Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have already thrown so much money into these new consoles that if they release them and if they don't sell a lot of the company's future plans could come into jeopardy. Microsoft releases the 360 in hopes that all the money they have spent on this machine pays off and the product actually sells. One big problem arrives out of this though because the people were already enraged about the cost of gaming that a new console which will cost a lot doesn't seem to be something they would want to purchase. Microsoft launches the consoles at $400 and people refuse to spend that much on a console when they are already angered about the cost before. Microsoft fails so badly with this product they decide to leave the gaming market all together and just stick with software but they can't go crazy with anything at the moment because of the big hit they took with the failing of the 360. Things don't look bright for the PS3 or Wii and they decide to drop the consoles all together and just get into handheld market because it is a lot cheaper than a full console. Gaming starts to die out and after time there is a period where it seems no one in the world is playing games. This is until people find that PC gaming is starting to become really cheap. PC gaming takes off and starts a revolution and gaming starts to get big again and people want to start paying for games again. See how much one event can change something like gaming that right now is one of the biggest forms of entertainment available at the moment.
Really though is any decade complete without its really big disease coming through and scaring everyone? Of course not! That's why in this decade we had the Swine Flu which was doing that job really well. So well that some people started to wear masks to try and keep themselves healthy which actually became a fashion trend for about a week with new masks that had special patterns and pictures on them. Some people were so worried about the Swine Flu they actually started to close down schools and other public places like that which I found to be an overreaction. They created a shot for it and people flocked to get it and then a giant news story broke out because of this shot. Someone got this shot and became very ill because of it and it hit the news like a tornado. A lot of people felt bad for her and swore to never get the shot while others called it fake and said she was doing it for attention and money. There was a giant debate over this disease for a long time, everyone talking about how bad it was how much damage it was going to cause. Then we hit the end of the decade and now barley anyone still talks about it and it's like it never happened.
In my eyes that is how the decade played out and I wouldn't have it any other way. Well even if I wanted it to happen another way I wouldn't be able to make it happen so I better just be happy with it and move on to the next decade. That's the thing about life everything happens so fast that you have to take time to look back on what happened and when you see what actually happened and wish that you could change it in some way but you never can. We don't have a time machine at the moment so we have to live life the way it is now and just try and make every day better.
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