While a little common sense and life experience can demonstrate the imperfections in your (and everyone else’s) memory, Schacter’s research points to two important things: we’re no good at recalling past events or imagining the future because our process for doing either is essentially the same—at least as far as our brain functionality is concerned. While this points to much more of a problem than a solution, it certainly helps to remember that no memory is perfect and we’re all designed to recall with error. Next time someone gets something wrong, it’s at least worth remembering that.