Worrying Too Much About the Last Thing and Not Enough About the Next Thing

I recently read the book Alone, by Michael Korda. It was about the opening months of World War II, and he said that at the time the French had the reputation as the world's preeminent military power. This obviously turned out to not be the case, but in the past they had been. Is there anything where we're overemphasizing our view of the past, and overlooking that what might happen in the future will almost certainly be completely different. I think there is...