When future arrives, we'll all be surprised

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

-- Albert Einstein

My wife called the other day on my office phone, and her first question was why I didn't answer my cell phone, which she knows I always carry. (Sometimes, if my pocket's full, I can't tell when it vibrates.)

My mother's the same way. She rarely calls the house phone. When she wants me, she calls the scuffed and scratched piece of hardware that usually shares a pocket with my car keys.

She doesn't dial the number, either. No one does that anymore. The numbers are programmed and assigned a button.

When we want someone, we scroll a menu or push their button. The call goes through and the person answers.

While all this hardly seems remarkable, what it demonstrates probably is. We have reached a level of connectivity where most of us can reach out and talk to almost anyone at almost anytime, if we know the cell phone number.

And just think -- this wasn't predicted on The Jetsons .

Yes, that 1960s TV show that showed a Kennedy-era expectation of the future was big on flying cars and helpful robots, but it somehow missed out on the Internet and cell phones.

I think about that a lot, because I think about the future a lot. (Parents of teenagers often do.)

I'm curious because so far I have had little success in predicting anything that has happened.

The Internet and the computers it uses are truly remarkable because you can look up almost anything. Quickly.

And when you find it, you can copy it or forward it to almost anyone, and perhaps even send it to their cell phone.

We do this everyday, yet only a few years ago, no one thought we would, imagined we would or had any idea why we would want to.

Why?

Well, according to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert (whom I found on the Internet), we base our expectations on previous experiences or possible alternatives, when those are totally irrelevant.

Dr. Gilbert, the author of Stumbling on Happiness, says the reason for this is that daily life requires our attention, leaving us little time to ponder alternatives.

In other words, we don't see what's coming because we expect the future to be a modified extension of the present.

That explains, I guess, why we're sitting around talking on cell phones still waiting for someone to invent a flying car.