My great grandfather next to me tapped his fingernail on his champagne glass, the resulting ring echoed throughout the room. He stood up, like people normally would have to ask permission to make a toast, except him. The room got quiet and everyone either looked up at the man or turned to look at him, raising their glasses in the air. I did the same. I briefly made eye contact with Josh on the other side of the room.

“I would like to make a toast, to everyone.” he started.

“Not to everyone in the room, but to everyone in the world.” He paused for a second; everyone was carefully listening.

“I am around about eighty years old. And in that time I’ve both built and watch our lives be built. I watched the world change in ways I could have never thought of in the past. The life expectancy in the world has more than doubled, the world brought together by The Internet, personal computing, And when I look back on all of this, I honestly feel proud. I feel like we have been really good to each other, all things considered, and I just, I don’t know. I’m at a loss for words.”

The man stopped for quite a while. He stared into space. I went to clink my glass with hi- “Actually,” he said, “I would like to make a toast to luck.”

Everyone kept respectfully listening. “I believe that everything that has happened to us is entire attributed to luck - and I believe that the luck may be running out.”

Another pause for possibly accidental dramatics. My arm was getting tired.

“Climate change, bigotry, wealth hoarding, poverty, totalitarianism, corporatism - I feel like the future has so much in store for us - and we’re not ready. And as the clock approaches midnight, on this new years eve, ask yourselves: what will we as a species do to save ourselves?”

He stared off into space; everyone was engaged. He clinked my glass, finishing the toast. Everyone drank a bit of their champagne, I followed suit even though I didn’t want to. After I put my glass down I briefly made eye contact with Josh again, who went back to talking.