Sometimes I like to think about how much change a 100 year old person alive today would have witnessed in their life. If we take someone born in 1925, they would have enjoyed both silent films and IMAX movies, used both early telephones and modern smartphones, witnessed a computing revolution, and much, much more. Personally, when I view a list like that, I can’t help but marvel at how much they had to adapt. Much like a parent doesn’t realize their child is growing taller, though, I think it is easy to ignore how much the world has changed in my lifetime, and how much it will continue to change. Not even counting the recent advancements in AI, I’ve witnessed the world before and after smartphones, seen quality consumer phone cameras develop, ridden in one of many mass produced electric vehicles, been in a self driving car, and more (just in 21 years!). 

   What do we get out of acknowledging this? I feel that there’s a cognitive bias lurking in not recognizing how dramatic the ongoing shifts in our life are, one that I’ve personally experienced. Growing up, it’s easy to assume that the world will function more or less the same, and you will experience adulthood in the same way you observed your parents doing. These crystalized ideas of how life should function are hard to update, namely because it's hard to realize how much the world is changing everyday. Bringing back that person born in 1925 for a second, it’d be disingenuous to claim that this person lived in the same world that their parents did. But growing up, I’m sure they thought they would! Recognizing this bias can help us make long-term decisions that possibly fare better as time passes.