What Is Your Relationship With Your Future Self?
Written by Kate • April 29, 2020 •
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This is something I’ve been mulling over lately. In the past, I’ve assumed my future self will be able to handle all the “mistakes”, bad decisions, over spending, over eating, over drinking, and under disciplined actions I take. I’ve thought that my future self will be wiser, better, richer, smarter, and healthier than current me. Can you relate?
But I see that my future self is dependent on what my current self decides, eats, drinks, spends, and does. My future self can’t be any wiser, smarter, wealthier, or healthier than actions that my current self takes.
So if I overspend now, my future self has to clean up my current self’s debt. If I overeat now, my future self has to deal with excess weight that my current self is willing to mortgage my future with. If I make decisions that cause me to go into debt, into over consuming in any way, then I’ve mortgaged my future self and handicapped her ability to make decisions from a place of abundance.
So I examined my belief and the thinking the supports it, that my future self will be handle my current thought errors and unsupportive decisions. And I made the decision that I want my future self to have a better class of problems, as Tony Robbins has said about the enduring presence of problems. We’ll always have our problems or our challenges, but we can have a better class of them. And I want that for future me.
I’ve written my future self a love letter from me now. I do want her to be healthier, wiser, wealthier, and more joyful than I now. But to do that, I’m tackling the obstacles I see before me now. I’m building muscles on how to be more disciplined and make wiser choices that help me delay gratification, build resilience, and live a life much more inline with our authentic self. I’m stepping away from habits of indulgence and short term thinking towards a life that is centered on the now, I no longer believe my future self can rescue me from habits that don’t support or serve me and yet that I deepen by repeating them day in and day out.
My future self won’t rescue me from myself. Only I can now. Here. In the Now. I’m doing all I can so my future self will be proud, happy, and bettered by the decisions I’m making now.
I love you, future self. Here’s to us and a better class of problems.