The future is unknown and you don't know what's ahead (and that's fine)

I spoke with Matthew Jenssen, a mathematician who obtained his masters from Cambridge and is currently pursuing a PhD at the London School of Economics. He specializes in combinatorics— part of which involves the study of large networks and probability. I asked him about how humans misconstrue probability. Firstly, he explains, there’s an effect known as the Gambler’s Fallacy. “Basically, the Gambler’s Fallacy is the idea that if you do a coin toss and you flip 10 heads in a row, the universe needs to restore order and you’re due some tails. In reality, this isn’t true. The coin toss is an isolated random event.”

Of course, life isn’t just random, our actions do make a difference. As Jenssen puts it, “Life isn’t memoryless like the coin toss— it’s more complicated. You can do things today that might benefit you years from now.” But at the very least this suggests that a) the stories we tell ourselves about the future may not be true and b) if we don’t know what will happen next it’s a good idea to get the most of out the moment we happen to be in. This one right now. So instead of starting out with a preconceived idea of how we think things will turn out, or how we’d like them to unfold, the best thing we can do is be open to the opportunities of each passing moment.