I was having a conversation with my brother today, and he asked me something about the future, about what I think would happen.

I basically said that I had no idea, because the world changes. And sometimes we don’t even realize all the changes that are happening until we look back at them.

Forecasting is more like trying to be a fortune teller sometimes. It can be incredibly inaccurate because it rests on the premise that the future is going to be like the past. We assume that trends will continue and we project without being able to know the unexpected.

Things make sense when you are looking backward. Things sometimes don’t make sense at all when we are looking forward.

Population forecasts, stock forecasts, housing forecasts, weather forecasts, climate forecasts: they might be right, but they could also be very wrong. Things may change, things we don’t expect. Trends change.

So I’m optimistic, because I’m a lot happier that way, even if the forecasts seem like doom and gloom. The world might end tomorrow, but I really doubt it.