It is becoming prevalent in today's vocabulary to talk about our future selves. In the article Progressive Summarization, Tiago Forte visualizes a future self so busy that "seconds count" when attempting to find relevant information for a project. If your present self doesn't get the wording right, future-you will miss the boat or won't take the time to figure out what past you were thinking. [1]
Truthfully, I'm pretty confident that no matter how carefully I construct the wording of something my future self might read. My future self will always have more experience and will undoubtedly say, "ugh, what was I thinking?"
Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. in her popular Stanford University course "The Science of Willpower" and later in her book "The Willpower Instinct," discusses future-self continuity. In other words, those who can see your future self as a genuine person help overcome many of today's difficulties. People who can recognize that their future self might not be as strong, mobile, healthy, or passionate "seems to propel people to be the best version of themselves now." (McGonigal, 2011 L.2726.)
McGonigal illustrated the point by experimenting. Note to self: Don't ever volunteer to be a Ginny pig for a psych experiment! The experiment asked students to drink a revolting liquid from ketchup and soy sauce. The students got to choose how much of the drink they were willing to consume in the name of science.
Some students were told the drinking part of the study would take place next semester. Some students choose how much of the cocktail the next participant in the study would be required to drink.
The result? The students assigned their future selves and the next participant, more than twice as much of the disgusting liquid as they were willing to drink in the present.
The Implication? We think about our future selves like different people. We treat our future selves like strangers. (McGonigal, 2011)
Why do we do this? McGonigal says it is because we often idealize them, expecting our future selves to do what our present selves cannot manage. Sometimes we mistreat them, burdening them with the consequences of our current selves' decisions or lack thereof.
Have you ever put off a phone call due to the problematic nature of the topic? Deciding you will be strong enough to deal with the problem in the future? Or at least courageous enough to make the call in the first place?
Have you started a project knowingly overcommitting yourself to responsibilities, only to find yourself overwhelmed by impossible demands? These are all signs that point toward a future-self imbalance. We think so highly of our future selves that even if our present self is in the middle of an extreme self-control conflict, we foolishly expect our future selves will be unconflicted. Our future self will emerge to save us from our present selves at the very last moment. (McGonigal, 2011)
The sad reality is that when we get to the future, our ideal future self isn't there, and our same, but NOW older self is left making the decisions.
When we donate time to the future by putting off something that we could have done today, we don't feel the stress of the future week's schedule. Without the internal cues of disgust and anxiety, when looking at a revolting drink in front of us, we guess wrong about what we will be willing to do in the future.
This habit of treating our future self like another person has significant consequences for self-control. The less continuity there is between now-you and your future self, the more likely you are to say "screw you" to future you and "yes" to immediate gratification.
Feeling connected to our future selves protects us from our worst impulses.
The easiest way to see this continuity is to look back. If you could send a note back through space and time, what would you thank the past version of you for accomplishing? (McGonigal, 2011)
When a past version of myself answered this question on Jan 24, 2014, at 6:53 am. Here were a few of his answers:
Going back to college after failing the first time. (yes, a whopping 0.54 GPA)
Kissing the blond girl by Theta pond (now my wife of 39 years)
Taking a job where I would be paid based on my own effort (commission sales)
Sticking with that job during difficult times.
Taking the time to go to as many of my children’s activities as possible.
Skiing
Continuing to study goal setting and how to achieve dreams.
to name a few
When my future self answers the same questions, I hope he says of me today:
Thank you for taking Fridays off to relax and reduce stress.
Thank you for hiking/climbing and keeping us active in outdoor pursuits.
Lay off the $%&@! Heath blizzards.
References:
[1] [Progressive Summarization: A Practical Technique for Designing Discoverable Notes - Forte Labs](https://fortelabs.co/blog/progressive-summarization-a-practical-technique-for-designing-discoverable-notes/)
McGonigal Ph.D., Kelly (2011-12-29). The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. (Location 2726).
Summary of a presentation given in June 2014.