The best way to predict your future is to… look around

Abraham Lincoln and countless others have uttered some variation of this quote: “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

But how do you know what kind of future to create?

What if what you’ll create won’t suit you?

You’ll probably create something akin to what your parents created and what your peers are creating.

Turns out this statement doesn’t answer the most important question which is “What kind of future to create?”

Predicting your future is actually pretty easy. Just look at your closest friends and family and you will figure it out.

Why? Because you are most likely to create the kind of future which you observe the most.

If you treat your education as a way of securing a stable, ideally risk free and fail proof career that will buy you a certain lifestyle it means that it was something your parents and peers also did/ do and that the culture in which you grew up promotes.

If you grew up in such environment it is very unlikely that you will have a different mindset than those around you and that you will want to pursue your passion and that your choices will reflect that. Rather you will choose something because you want the lifestyle that your parents had or because you aspire to have a certain lifestyle.

Thus the best way to predict your future is to look around you and see what the people who are closest to you do.

What most people fail to ask themselves is “Is this the kind of future I want for myself?”

I guess some would say Yes and some would say No.

Those who’d want that future would need to follow the example of their parents and peers. They’d know what to do and they’d have other people who’d tell them what to do.

What about those who wouldn’t want that future? They’d need to change that future and the only way they could do it is by creating their own future. The downside: no map!

So I’d say that the best way to predict your future is to look around. And the best way to change the future you don’t want is to create your own.

The one thing you’ll need in order to change that future is awareness. Without it you’ll mindlessly create a kind of future that you’ll not necessarily like.