IMAGINABLE: How Anyone Can Predict the Future (Yes, Even You)
A survey of 10,000 people reported in the Lancet found that 75% of kids between the ages of 16 and 25 think “the future is frightening.” A majority of those survey respondents agreed with the statement, “humanity is doomed.”
And it’s not just the young. “The state of the planet is one of collective shock,” says Jane McGonigal, renowned futurist and author of the new book,?Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything. Need more proof? In the past two years, there were 2.5 million news stories with the word “unimaginable” in them. Now, I’m guessing that a lot of those stories were about the COVID-19 pandemic. Who could have seen that coming, right? Well, Jane did.
How Jane McGonigal Predicted the Pandemic, 10 Years Before COVID
Back in 2010, she ran a future simulation game for the World Bank where, and I’m quoting from the book now, “[20,000] players were immersed in a future world that was dealing with a global respiratory pandemic that had started in China ...?and?an outbreak of social media–driven misinformation and conspiracy theories about the pandemic ...?and?historic wildfires up and down the West Coast of the United States due to climate change ...?and?a shocking collapse of the power grid due to aging infrastructure and extreme weather.”
If we train our minds to imagine the unimaginable, we’ll be better prepared if the unthinkable comes to pass.
Talk about clairvoyant. Though that’s not really the point of Jane’s work — she doesn’t run these simulations so she can look back a decade later and say, “I told you so.” She runs them because the latest research in psychology and neuroscience shows us that if we train our minds to imagine the unimaginable, we’ll be better prepared if the unthinkable actually comes to pass. That’s what happened to the folks who participated in Jane’s pandemic simulation. When COVID-19 hit, they didn’t feel panicky and helpless like so many of us did. They knew what to do, and they acted accordingly.
The Power of Thinking 10 Years Ahead
In the my conversation with Jane, she shares techniques we can all use to predict the future — and maybe even influence it. She invites us to imagine, in vivid detail, what our lives will be like in ten years. This has an odd effect — it generates a feeling of “time spaciousness” as opposed to “time debt.”
Ask yourself: Where will I be? With whom? How will I spend a typical day? What global trends will impact us in the coming decade? How will we have responded to looming crises like extreme heat from climate change or the radicalization of young people via social media? What are the things we should get excited about? Universal basic income … the chance to reinvent higher education?
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If we can learn — as individuals and as a society — to anticipate what’s coming and respond to it creatively, we’ll be in much better shape when the future rolls around.
Final Thoughts
Jane’s book has been a hit with our curators. Adam Grant called it “ eye-opening” and “actionable.” Daniel Pink said reading it was like “sitting down with a creative, optimistic friend—and getting up as a new version of yourself.”
It’s always occurred to me that change is inevitable, so it’s probably a good idea to befriend change. And Jane has this great comment about “befriending your future self.” And your future self is different. And that’s a beautiful thing. This process of imagining your life 10 years from now is an invitation to embrace positive change and put it into action.
Listen to my conversation with Jane McGonigal below, on?Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and join the discussion in the comments below! Have your imagined scenarios led to accurate predictions of the future?
Episode Notes
?? Listen to Jane's 5 key insights from Imaginable (13 minutes)
??. Grab a copy of Imaginable
?? Try one of Jane’s simulations at?urgentoptimists.org
?? Download?the Next Big Idea app today!