Understanding the Futures
Hmmm, the futures. I thought about the futures a few times, but what does it actually mean? Let's talk about it! The futures is everything that still needs to happen, but hasn’t happened just yet. So everything that will happen tomorrow and all the days after that will be the futures. So in other words, everything what will happen one second, one day, one month but also years from now.
How do we think of time?
We can think of time in three different ways, we call this periodical thinking. We divide time up into three different periods: the past, the present and the futures. If you mostly think about the past, your view on life will be different than somebody who thinks more about the futures. Now this is quite abstract and not so easy to understand. Let me clarify this by using the metaphor of the tree. A metaphor is a figure of speech, in this case the tree we are talking about represents time.
The Futures Cone
This cone represents time, as you can see, in the present the cone is very narrow. So, we can easily and with certainty say what is happening, and will happen in the near future. The further the cone goes into the futures though, the wider it gets. This is because the further ahead you are thinking, the harder it is to make predictions of what will happen.
Let’s explore this using the metaphor of the tree.
When I cut the branches of the tree, the most likely outcome is that new branches will grow in their place. However, the tree might also dry up and die. This last possibility is however much less likely, so we are starting to near the limit of likelihood. This is a zone of the future cone in which what you predict could happen, but it is quite unlikely to happen.
Whereas my prediction that new branches will grow in place of the old cut ones, is much more likely to happen, so this is located near our baseline. On the baseline are the events that we believe are most likely to happen.
