{"id":2466,"date":"2014-06-10T13:25:46","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T17:25:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/?p=2466"},"modified":"2014-06-10T13:25:46","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T17:25:46","slug":"underestimating-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2014\/06\/underestimating-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Underestimating Change"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Psychologist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.danielgilbert.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Dan Gilbert<\/a>, who you may recognize from retirement commercials, gives a short (6:40) but interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/dan_gilbert_you_are_always_changing\" target=\"_blank\">TED Talk<\/a> on the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/End-of-history_illusion\" target=\"_blank\">end-of-history illusion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/dan_gilbert_you_are_always_changing.html\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Essentially, people underestimate how much they will change in the future.\u00a0 While it&#8217;s true that our rate of change slows as we age, this phenomenon (anticipating that we will change less in the next decade than we actually do) holds true for all ages.\u00a0 It&#8217;s true for our values, personalities, and even our tastes (likes and dislikes).<\/p>\n<p>Why is this so?\u00a0 Probably two reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At any point in life we think we&#8217;ve &#8220;arrived&#8221; in our development<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s much easier to see how we&#8217;ve changed in hindsight than it is to imagine how we&#8217;ll be in the future.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As Gilbert puts it in concluding:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"talk-transcript__para__text\"> <span id=\"t-341952\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"341952\">The bottom line is, time is a powerful force.<\/span> <span id=\"t-345519\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"345519\">It transforms our preferences.<\/span> <span id=\"t-347162\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"347162\">It reshapes our values.<\/span> <span id=\"t-349280\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"349280\">It alters our personalities.<\/span> <span id=\"t-350623\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"350623\">We seem to appreciate this fact,<\/span> <span id=\"t-353190\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"353190\">but only in retrospect.<\/span> <span id=\"t-354751\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"354751\">Only when we look backwards do we realize<\/span> <span id=\"t-357246\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"357246\">how much change happens in a decade.<\/span> <span id=\"t-360518\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"360518\">It&#8217;s as if, for most of us,<\/span> <span id=\"t-362197\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"362197\">the present is a magic time.<\/span> <span id=\"t-364366\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"364366\">It&#8217;s a watershed on the timeline.<\/span> <span id=\"t-366383\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"366383\">It&#8217;s the moment at which we finally<\/span> <span id=\"t-368727\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"368727\">become ourselves.<\/span> <span id=\"t-371230\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"371230\">Human beings are works in progress<\/span> <span id=\"t-373923\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"373923\">that mistakenly think they&#8217;re finished.<\/span> <span id=\"t-376846\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"376846\">The person you are right now<\/span> <span id=\"t-378636\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"378636\">is as transient, as fleeting and as temporary<\/span> <span id=\"t-382338\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"382338\">as all the people you&#8217;ve ever been.<\/span> <span id=\"t-384997\" class=\"talk-transcript__fragment\" data-time=\"384997\">The one constant in our life is change.<\/span> <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So here&#8217;s to change . . . and growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2014\/06\/underestimating-change\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Underestimating Change\"><p>Psychologist Dan Gilbert, who you may recognize from retirement commercials, gives a short (6:40) but interesting TED Talk on the end-of-history illusion. Essentially, people underestimate how much they will change in the future.\u00a0 While it&#8217;s true that our rate of change slows as we age, this phenomenon (anticipating that we will change less in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2466"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2469,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2466\/revisions\/2469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}