Rehearsing Tomorrow
A note from H B’s wife, Carol: This is the final blog that H B wrote before he died unexpectedly on June 3, 2021. H B considered himself a futurist; this final blog epitomizes that. I post this blog on his behalf, with love.
Your image of the future may be the most important factor in determining what your future will be.
“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
~Henry Ford
The future hasn’t happened and it never will. Once it arrives it becomes the present and then the past. However, I believe it is possible to say that your image of your future, before it happens, is a very important factor in determining what it will be when it happens.
What you do makes a difference in your future. Doing nothing also makes a difference. What you do and don’t do counts; and it depends on what you believe. What you believe determines what you do. Believing is seeing is doing. What you believe is already in your mind. “The eye sees what it looks for and it looks for what is already in the mind,” Scientific School of Police, Paris.
I believe your image of the future will include what you believe your role to be: How much influence you will have in determining your future. This belief will be important in determining what you do to influence your future. This says to me that this means it is extremely important to know what your beliefs about your future are. I repeat:
Your image of the future may be the most important factor in determining what your future will be.
I don’t know of course, how many people imagine their future. I don’t even want to guess. To me, it is considered an important skill. The future hasn’t happened yet and what you do next can make a difference. So, thinking about what to do next involves thinking about the future.
Scenario rehearsal and scenario planning are methods of rehearsing future scenarios in order to be able to adapt to what is happening and anticipate what could happen. These methods are frequently employed by organizations but not often by individuals. I believe imagining, rehearsing and planning the future are useful, and even important skills, for individuals planning their future. To get to where you want to go, you have to know where you want to go.
Personal scenario rehearsal and scenario planning doesn’t have to be some fancy organizational technique. Just think about where you want to go or what you want to do and rehearse it in your mind, practice it in your mind and learn from the personal experience. By rehearsing your future scenarios you can make decisions about adapting to what is happening and anticipate what could happen.
Practice makes perfect. Rehearsal leads to perfection.
“The future is not someplace we are going to, but a place we are creating.”
~John Schaar
Positive Uncertainty 
Definitely one of his best!
Sent from my iPhone
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What a spectacular way for a life to end!
HI CAROL, It was with a tiny bit of an initial jolt to get the unexpected e-mail/blog just awhile back, but I quickly recovered, though with twinges of sadness. Thank you so much for sharing the opportunity to read these blogs. Every time I got one over the years, I read it with interest, as you can imagine. And I commented on a number of them, even connecting at times with the meditation practice I have been participating in for the last 24 years.
I am planning on copying these blogs and sending them to Eric S. I know he has appreciated some of them in the past. Eric respected, admired, and really cared for HB. He will like reading these hard copies of the last few (those two, Eric and Karla, have never hooked up to any technology– That may have its advantages a these times don’t you think
I hope you are doing well in body and spirit. Such a huge loss for all of you Gelats and your extended family who he spoke about with enthusiasm and affection and who must have loved him so well. I really like thinking of HB up in the Sierras.
Blessings to you and appreciation for being such a GOOD wife to HB. And in those last moments for him to call for you “Carol! Carol!” knowing you would come and help him reach his last choices of how he wished to die. We should all be so fortunate to have such a loving send-off.
Cynthia
Thank you for posting these last writings of HB, Carol. He is already so very missed by me and many others, I know. And especially by you. Thanks for these gifts. – Warmest regards, Mark Pope
Thanks so much, Mark. ~~Carol