Tag: future

By Mike Koetting February 3, 2026

This is the third, and for the moment, final post in my series on how we are failing to prepare the next generation for a fulfilling life. The first two posts focused on broad, but tangible issues, the economy facing young people and the confusion of post-secondary education. Today’s post is about something more diffuse but arguably more important—failing to create a sense of a robust future in young people.

Brief History of the Future

The idea of “the future” is a relatively new idea in history. All the ancient religions had some sense of the magic and mystical beyond day to day, mundane life. And all had a broad notion that fate served some people better than others. To create some degree of protection against the fickle fingers of fate, they conjured rituals and rules. But this was not “future” as we think of it; it was simply the awareness of the random distribution of events from a relatively limited set of possibilities.

Continue reading “Deflating the Future”