Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
We Are Always Fighting
-the Last War
– The Last Relationship
– the last Economy
– the last Business Method
There’s a flaw baked deep into the human operating system: we prepare for what already happened, not for what’s actually coming.
For all our inventions, for all our education, for all the wisdom we claim to have collected like seashells on the beach… we still insist on steering our ship by looking out the stern window.
It’s a miracle we don’t run aground more often.
Every generation has its favorite superstition, and ours is this: the belief that the world will misbehave in exactly the same way it misbehaved last time. So we dress up yesterday’s strategies in new uniforms and march them proudly into tomorrow’s battles.
It shows up everywhere.
In war, yes — that part is obvious.
But also in business, in relationships, in economics, in technology…
in every place where the world changes and people refuse to.
We build our defenses around the last wound, the last betrayal, the last recession, the last disruption — and then wonder why the next one slips right past us like a pickpocket with a PhD.
The Last Business Method
Every business that dies has the same tombstone:
“Here lies a company that perfected a world that no longer exists.”
Blockbuster defended late fees while Netflix was inventing streaming.
Taxi unions fought Uber with clipboards while Uber fought them with code.
Newspapers were busy building bigger printing presses while the internet quietly stole their audience in the middle of the night.
Most people don’t lose because they’re stupid.
They lose because they’re experienced — and experience, ironically, becomes a liability.
They mastered the last business model.
Perfected the last playbook.
Optimized the last strategy.
Meanwhile the next one was already being born — small, overlooked, and ridiculously obvious in hindsight.
The Last Relationship
People don’t just fight the last war — they date it, marry it, and bring it to Thanksgiving dinner.
We guard our hearts with lessons from the last person who hurt us,
then punish the next person for crimes they didn’t commit.
We become experts in the last heartbreak: “Never date someone like that again.” “Never trust this type again.” “Never fall for that trick again.”
But life doesn’t repeat tricks.
It invents new ones.
And the cost of fighting the last relationship is that we never show up fully to the new one.
We’re too busy interrogating the present for the sins of the past.
We think we’re protecting ourselves, but really, we’re just hauling old luggage into new rooms.
The Last Economy
Governments regulate the economy like it’s still 1985.
Central banks use tools built for industries powered by coal and paperwork.
Tax codes chase yesterday’s loopholes while today’s are carved from software and blockchain.
We try to solve modern crises with vintage tools —
as if the economy were a museum exhibit instead of a living creature with very sharp teeth.
The Last Threat
Parents warn their children about the dangers they faced decades ago,
forgetting that the world has upgraded its traps.
Schools teach skills built for a world that was fading even as the textbooks were printed.
Mark Twain once observed that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. What he left unsaid—even though he surely knew it—is that people repeat themselves far more faithfully than history ever does.
People repeat.
And repeat.
And repeat.
The winners in every era — the ones who survive, thrive, and lead — have one trait in common:
They don’t prepare for the last war,
or the last business cycle,
or the last betrayal,
or the last crisis.
They prepare for the next one.
They watch the horizon, not the rear-view mirror.
The trick to surviving tomorrow is not becoming an expert in yesterday. It’s learning to live with uncertainty, to see the world as a river instead of a railroad track—something that bends, twists, floods, and changes in ways no textbook can prepare you for.
Because the secret to life is this:
Yesterday is a map.
History reminds you what happened.
Wisdom reminds you that it won’t happen the same way again.
Tomorrow is a different country.
And the border guards don’t accept old passports.
