When people struggle to imagine different futures, it’s tempting to say they lack imagination.
I don’t think that’s usually the problem.
More often, people are drawing on futures they’ve inherited: images, narratives, and assumptions absorbed from films, policy documents, corporate roadmaps, and decades-old visions of progress. These “used futures” feel familiar and safe, even when they no longer fit the world we’re living in.
In futures workshops, this shows up quickly. Ask people to imagine the year 2040, and many will reach for the same imagery: flying cars, hyper-dense cities, corporate dystopias, seamless automation. These futures aren’t wrong, but they’re recycled. They come preloaded with assumptions about efficiency, growth, and technological control.
What’s striking is how quickly things shift when the framing changes.
When the question moves from “What does 2040 look like?” to “What does a day in your life feel like in 2040?”, the futures that emerge are different. They’re more grounded and relational. They tend to be less about gadgets and technology and more about belonging, care, meaning, and how we interact with each other and our environment.
This is why facilitation matters so much in futures work. The prompts we use don’t just elicit ideas. They actively shape what futures become imaginable.
Noticing used futures isn’t about being more original. It’s about becoming more aware of the assumptions we’re carrying forward without realising it. Sometimes, the most generative futures work begins by inviting people to think about whose future they are repeating, and what might happen if they let it go.