Occasionally I'm asked, “Where do you come up with the ideas for your editorials? Don't you ever run out of things to rant about?” I'm happy to respond that, to date, I haven't experienced any major episodes of writer's block and have, in fact, an almost too wide variety of sources providing inspiration. This month, it's a work of non-fiction by Canadian author and columnist, Dan Gardner — Future babble: Why expert predictions fail — and why we believe them anyway.1 In a nutshell, the book looks at the psychology of why humans have an endless appetite for predictions and then willingly ignore the facts when the predictions don't pan out. Reading this book, of course, caused me to reflect on some of my own writing, particularly a column where I thought I had a future in fortune-telling. Since Gardner quotes research stating that the average expert prediction has no more chance of being right than a flipped coin,1 I thought it was time to revisit that article from July 20102 and see how well my predictions have stood the test of time. Prediction #1 — “Within 2 years, the Canadian pharmacy landscape will look vastly different than it does today” Hmm, I'd say generic drug reimbursement programs, pharmacy technician regulation, remote filling and changes in scope of practice legislation (not to mention the unforecasted drug short-age situation) have somewhat changed the pharmacy landscape, albeit to a greater degree in some provinces than others. Can we say the landscape is vastly different? That might be a stretch. I don't think the average community or hospital pharmacist will say their practice environment has vastly improved over the past 2 years, but on the whole, most patients have not seen a huge negative change in the type and manner of pharmacy services available to them either. I also don't think we've yet seen the mass devastation of the community practice sector predicted by some 2 years ago. Maybe others have a different opinion, but I think I was over-reaching a bit with this one. Score: 0/1 Prediction #2 — “The pharmacist ‘shortage’ may be over” Here, I think I was closer to the mark. It appears that in many regions, pharmacist wages have been reduced or are stagnating. This is particularly so for relief pharmacists and those working in large urban areas where pharmacist vacancies have dropped the most. Earlier this year the British Columbia government announced the cancellation of a wage adjustment it had been offering to hospital pharmacists, saying “in most areas of BC, this incentive was no longer needed.”3 So, total score: 1/2 Not a very convincing record (and approximately what the Future Babble experts would expect). So, should we stop looking to the future altogether? I've been hearing that pharmacy is at a crossroads for more than 3 decades and yet we still don't seem to know what's going to happen next in our profession or how to get where we want to be. Perhaps the solution is to follow Gardner's somewhat unsatisfying advice and accept that “the world is unpredictable.”1 Then instead of looking to so-called experts for prognostications, we could just aim to do our best in the here and now, and hope that luck is on our side.