At the beginning of the 20th century, cities around the world were facing a vexing problem that was getting worse by the day.
literally.
The population of big cities grew rapidly, and so did the number of horse-drawn carriages transporting people from one place to another.
The problem? Horses a lot Useless.
At the time, New York City had an estimated 130,000 to 200,000 horses transporting people and goods around Manhattan, generating more than 5 million pounds of manure every day.
Yep, there’s a lot of poop.
At this point, the future looked pretty dire, as the city’s population was exploding vertically into skyscrapers and more horses were being hired every day to serve these people.
In 1894, Times The Mayor of London reportedly predicted that in 50 years the city will literally be buried in horse dung. And can you blame them? If you look at the trajectories of people, horses and dung, it would be easy to just keep drawing those lines all up and to the right.
Two years later, in 1896, the horseless carriage was fitted with a battery and internal combustion engine, and within 20 years, the automobile was widespread, and the horse manure problem had naturally solved itself.
At the same time, while humans were solving the traffic problem on our roads, they were struggling to solve another one…
(*This oft-quoted story is of dubious origin and its original source has never been revealed, but the moral of the story remains!)
Will humans ever really be able to fly?
By the late 1800s, after millions of wasted dollars, terrible disasters, and deadly accidents, human attempts at flight had been largely abandoned.
Despite widespread interest and many experimental attempts, too many people had died, too much money had been wasted, and there seemed to be no safe path to success.
The Washington Post stated unequivocally that “it is true that humans cannot fly.”
One particularly pessimistic gentleman predicted that “humans won’t be able to fly for the next 50 years.”
The prediction was made in 1901.
The rest is history: Less than two years later, Wilbur Wright took to the skies in a glider, becoming the first manned aircraft pilot in history.
Which fool made the hilariously wrong prediction that there would be no flights for 50 years?
Wilbur Wright!
Fortunately, he took the fact that his prediction was wrong by 48 years in stride and was happy to prove himself wrong. This is also a very strong lesson in not taking predictions too seriously.
Poor predictions!
Look back at any major event in history and you’ll find some ludicrously wrong predictions by well-known experts, both good and bad.
1968s Population explosion He predicted that within a few decades, global famine due to overpopulation would occur… and that makes sense. One look at this graph leads to the same conclusion.
Of course, this is no longer the problem we face as a planet.
Most experts today are still sounding the alarm, Feeling scared underpopulationCompared to a few decades ago, it’s exactly the opposite problem.
Predictions are a fickle thing, and we humans are very bad at them.
I’m sending you this essay because one of the most famous predictions was ludicrously wrong. In 1998, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said: The following about the Internet::
“Internet growth will slow dramatically… by about 2005, The Internet has had less of an impact on the economy than the fax machine.“
Oh well.
So what if humanity, even the experts, have been laughably wrong and made terrible predictions about the most transformative moment in human history? Also Is it possible that we are constantly making wrong predictions about our own lives?
It’s about time we start moderating our expectations a bit.
My vote? We’re starting to get a little closer to Wilbur Wright.
David McCullough’s Wright Brothers, Light After being proven wrong, I started thinking differently about my future.
“The proof of my incompetence as a prophet came as a great shock to me and has since caused me to doubt myself and to refrain from making any prophecies, as my friends, especially those in the media, are well aware.
but You don’t need to look too far into the future; It’s already looking good and I have no doubt it’s going to be great. Let’s just hurry up and get the road open.”
This is a very good strategy for looking at our own lives.
Let’s start by accepting that we will never get better at predicting the future.
We can sometimes have two conflicting ideas running in our heads at the same time. President Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”
I have just accepted that this is the way life is. I still make plans and predictions… but I am putting those plans and predictions on hold. very Loosely.
Looking back five years ago, I never would have predicted what the world and my life would be like, certainly not a global pandemic or the emergence of a life-changing drug like GLP-1.
Looking back last weekThere are many things that did not go according to plan. But I expect things to go wrong. As planned, I am rarely caught off guard when things turn out differently than expected.
This is what we do today:
If you want to become more resilient and achieve your goals, you need to accept that things won’t go according to plan.
In reality it looks like this:
- “I schedule workouts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 5:30pm, but due to work commitments I anticipate the platform will be empty on one of those days, so I have a back-up plan for an ‘at-home workout’ that I can do in my living room on those days.
- “I make a ‘meal plan’ for the week, but expect 30% of my meal plans to get screwed up because my kids’ after-school schedules are unpredictable, so I know exactly what I’m going to eat without a stop at McDonald’s deviating from my plan.”
- “I’m trying to reach my goal weight by this date, but I know everything takes longer than expected, so I don’t rush it and just focus on what I need to get done that day.”
This is today’s homework.
- Are there plans or projections that you are clinging to too tightly?
- Do you have a backup plan in case things don’t go as expected?
- Are you currently envisioning future scenarios? Absolutely true, Rather than accepting the possibility that you might be proven wrong?
The sooner you admit that your forecasting is poor, the sooner you can start working on what to do about it.
A strong prediction, but loose.
-Steve
P.S.: For those who missed the previous essays, we Also Smoke occasionallyIt’s fun. I know.
