It's Your Choice

"Star Wars": Most people will dedicate their lives to one of a small group of huge, hypercompetitive organizations -- 32.7%

"Brave New World": Personal relationships will yield in importance to scientific management -- 25.1%

"Mad Max": In a bleak world marked by violence and poverty, most people will work simply to survive -- 18.4%

The new millennium is only just upon us, and you want us to think about the next one already? Our respondents predict a distant future that has much in common with the present. Large companies dominate the economic landscape. At the level of the individual, it's a split decision: Scientific management may override human values; or, say almost as many respondents, we may be so well provided for that we will be able to move personal fulfillment to the top of the agenda. Some say both: Work will become routinized, and self-discovery will become a primary focus of activity. Then there are the voices of doom, predicting that it will turn out badly, really badly.

There is also a dark side to all of these forecasts: Contrary to new-economy-speak, the future is not ours to create. The next millennium is coming, and we do not control our own destiny.

Which of the following statements comes closest to capturing your thoughts about the last years of the second millennium?

"Greed is good" -- 10.5%
"Life is like a box of chocolates" -- 21.2%
"Here we are now, entertain us" -- 17.0%
"Shagadelic, baby!" -- 2.2%
"The future's so bright, I have to wear shades" -- 12.3%
"I did not have sex with that woman" -- 8.5%
"Yadda, yadda, yadda" -- 28.3%

No wonder that forecasts for the next millennium vary from dim to bleak: As we shuffle out of the 1990s, we are bound by a collective moral confusion that borders on indifference.

Forrest Gump's goofy proclamation on life ("a box of chocolates"), the choice of one respondent in five, has an upbeat ring to it. But it's also inherently fatalistic: "You never know what you're going to get." These are not the words of people who believe that they control their own destiny. Gordon Gekko's utterance, "Greed is good," is so '80s, but at least it has the ring of conviction (and, after conviction, a short stint in a minimum-security facility).

Even worse, Nirvana's demand to be entertained reeks of jaded passivity, and Clinton's wondrous nontruth smacks of outrageous cynicism. And the winning phrase that pays: Seinfeld's "Yadda, yadda, yadda," the ultimate testament to resigned indifference. On this score, respondents were in sync across lines of gender, age, and income.

Here's our take: Economic or geopolitical achievement doth not a millennium make. We all seek satisfaction of a different sort. Truth. Beauty. Justice. Meaning. Soul. And on those counts, the last years of the past century didn't deliver. So enough, already, with the old millennium. Been there, done that. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Whatever.

Additional questions and answers from this Fast Company-Roper Starch Worldwide survey are available at www.fastcompany.com/online/31/survey.html

Visit Roper Starch Worldwide on the Web (http://www.roper.com).